Sunday, January 23, 2011

Where I stand on issues regarding same-sex relationships and the biological validity of their existence

 Human Pair-Bonding and Mated Relationships In Cultures Popular and Traditional

  In the cultural conflict of family values, we need all the levity we can get to raise our spirits and inflate our hope that times are not as bad as some naysayers predict. As a means to that end, mockumentary style situational comedies provide a much needed remedy in the form of comic relief, as they comment on contemporary social themes  relative to all our lives.
    "Sitcoms" that seem to remain most in vogue across the television time-line continuum are those that focus on relationships, and those that seem most appealing are those that lampoon family relationships in particular. If we look closely enough, and are not too proud to admit it, each of us can see a lot or little bit of our own idiosyncrasies in the foibles of the characters displayed. It's comforting to know, when the world fails to recognize the beauty in our own flawed character, that at least we are not really alone. If we can laugh with them, the sting of others' laughter directed our way is softened.
    For the most part, TV show families, in episodic vignettes, portray value dilemmas that we all face, such that typify normal social transactions and interactions of day to day living. One show in particular, Modern Family, challenges traditional taboos of divorce, interracial coupling,  and gay mated couple configurations. It calls into question how marriage, the traditional institution that ritualizes and formalizes dimorphic coupling, is currently transitioning to include and recognize other types of pair-bonded relationships as equally valid forms of human being.
    The show itself is about three branches of a single family tree and their multigenerational experiences as related through kinship bonds. While the families featured in the sitcom represent what is understood as the typical nuclear family model, the couple-bonds heading the families themselves are atypical to those normatively found in American culture, and certainly are not structures that are   championed as representative of conservative mainstream American values. They in fact include a divorced/remarried, interracial/intergenerational couples and a gay male couple with an adopted Vietnamese child.     
    Historically, each culture in every place and era, has had its own set of both expectations and taboos around certain acceptable pair-bonding forms, and many persist even today.  Pasternack et al (Sex, Gender and Kinship pg. 77) provide reasoning that "scholars assume that where customs, traits and institutions are universal across cultures, there is a clear adaptive advantage for doing so". Several theories are used to explain why stable dimorphic-specific mated relationships have evolved into a universal characteristic of the human species. While each theory does not apply universally to all forms of pair-bonding, there are certain characteristics that apply within the specter of diverse mated relationship forms, including those featured in the show 'Modern Family'.
    According to one such theory, the adaptive advantage "solves the problem presented by gender division of labor" (Sex, Gender and Kinship pg. 78) such as getting food and other economic advantages. This definitely applies to the mated relationships in human primates where the female tends to defer to tasks centered around nurturing needs of the offspring, while the male provides for economic and protective needs of the female and their brood. In the show "Modern Family", we find an hilarious reversal of traditional gender roles, as its writers go to great lengths to portray situations in which the characters take responsibility for tending to tasks not traditionally assigned to their specific gender class. For instance, in one scene Jay and and his son-in-law Phil are assigned to take their sons out to the mall to purchase Halloween costumes. The experience of men shopping and dealing with transactions outside their normal social strata, is quite entertaining. Presenting yet another perspective, the writers of the show create a scene that shows how Cam and Mitchell, Lily's gay adoptive parents, share equally in the tasks of child rearing, with neither assigned to fulfill one specific role or the other. In these relationships, the basic idea of 'gender division of labor' is supported, though perhaps not in the traditional sense.
    Another theory presented by Pasternak et al, relative to behaviors observed in pair-bonding habits of other species, is the dependency theory (Sex, Gender and Kinship pg. 80).  This theory is considered pertinent to the human species as well because according to it, pair-bonding accommodates the long gestation period of offspring dependency, thus requiring the assurance of the provision of food, shelter, and protection. The families presented in 'Modern Family' have children as well, and the children seem to be the glue that binds them together. Even in the relationship between Cam and Mitchell, that of its own accord could not biologically produce offspring, the essential criteria for provision of food, shelter, and protection is satisfied, thus confirming their relationship as a valid form of pair-bonding mated relationship. Their infant daughter Lily's needs are met as one of the pair functions as the 'stay-at-home' dad (proxy mom), while the other goes out to forage for food in order to provide economic stability for the family unit.
    But what of those who reject non-traditional mated relationships, argueing  that they are unnatural (for moral or religious reasons), and as such they not be accepted as a valid proxy for traditional gender dimorphic arrangements?  Morals are socially constructed, relative to adaptation under certain circumstances, and as such are not necessarily a part of this discussion. However, to address the question of why males and females share responsibilities in some cases but not in others, etiologists (Pasternack et al, Sex, Gender and Kinship pg. 80) answer that question by investigating another: “Why can females in some species do without males”?  
    According to Melvin Embers, a contributor to the book  ‘Sex, Gender and Kinship’. the interference theory  accounts for the fact that without the division of labor exhibited in the distribution of gender specific tasks, nonhuman primate mothers would have to be away from their offspring while foraging for food, leaving their infants vulnerable to predators. Thus, “natural selection would favor male-female pair-bonding if  the mother’s feeding requirements interfere with her baby tending”.  Embers found this hypothesis to be supported among birds and mammal species. This is relevant to human dimorphic pair-bonding, the assumption being that  human mothers need help to manage all the tasks neccessary to ensure her survival and that of her offspring.  But why, posits Embers, would this eliminate the option of female-female pair-bonding? A female partner could just as easily replace the male in a relationship like this, by taking turns in tending to the needs of the brood, while the other went out to forage for food. However, the problem encountered in this arrangement, would be that there may be occasions when both mother might simultaneously have a set of offspring, and neither would be able to leave the offspring and tend to the task of providing food.  So that eliminates the potential reasoning for same-sex pair bonding  between females. In defense of humans however, females are not the victims of biology that their earlier ancestors were, and are quite capable of dividing labor while planning to avoid overlapping gestational circumstances, if they so choose.
    Human pair-bonding tendencies have been formalized through ritual and ceremony into a cultural phenomenon known as ‘marriage’. George Murdoch’s classic definition of marriage is “Marriage exists only when economic and sexual functions are united into one relationship” encompasses an inclusive range of broad relationship configurations that appear in the kalidescopic  diversity of human culture.  Male-female pair-bonding is not the only familial configuration that  has prevailed across cultures as evidenced by anthropological and sociological scientists who have studied pair-bonding patterns for generations, including those that affirm the practice of polygyny (males with multiple wives), polyandry  (female with multiple husbands -- among the Nayar’s of India’s Malibar coast [pg.83] ), female with female (Nandi of Kenya[pg.83]). Even the Cheyenne have engaged in socially sanctioned male-male bonding mated relationships. There have even been situations in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong in the last 50 years, where ghost marriages occured. And while that may seem strange to some who do not share the values supporting that particular cultural experience, these various pair-bonding configurations must be recognized for their capacity to convert friendship to kinship thereby satisfying the beneficent charge lying at the root of all mated relationships: to establish potentially useful connections between families and to strengthen social ties that serve to unite rather than divide us in the systemic networks that constitute our human commonalities.
    Families have traditionally consisted of a pair-bonded couple, each fulfilling an inherent need for economic and social security and comfort. Our disparate values may divide us, individually and culturally. But if we stop and reflect, our eyes may be open to the possibility that we are less different than we imagine; that we are more alike than we thought, especially in terms of the methods we choose to survive the vicissitudes of life. Once we’ve secured that position, then we are free to satisfy that gnawing inherent longing to achieve the often elusive and most precious human values of beauty, peace, hope, joy, happiness and, yes, even laughter and levity, which somehow makes it all worthwhile.  

Monday, January 10, 2011

Boys Will Be Girls ( Will Be Boys Will Be ….. etc)

Once upon a time in a land not so long and far away author and mother Cheryl Kilodavis wrote a book titled My Princess Boy: A Mom's Story About a Young Boy Who Loves to Dress Up. The book, which was inspired by her five-year old son Dyson's desire to dress as a princess, is now being used in schools as an gender diversity positive educational, anti-bullying tool.
I first learned about the interview from a featured news story highlighted on the Advocates.com's online edition. “I'm a princess boy and I love wearing dresses, and I love the colors of pink and red...it makes me feel happy”, says five-year-old Dyson Kilodavis during an interview with Meredith Vieira on MSNBC's Today show in July of 2010.
On the same topic, a separate interview by Vieira on MSNBC aired later in the year on November 8, featuring another young five year old boy, nicknamed “Boo”, who elected to chose the costume “Daphne” from the Scooby-Doo movie for his upcoming Halloween Kindergarten party. To protect the family's privacy Boo's mother Sarah has chosen not to reveal her surname, but, unabashed, she supports his choice. In response to the negative reactions she received from other mothers she replied, “If you think that me allowing my son to be a female character for Halloween is somehow going to make him “gay” then you are an idiot ….. I'm not worried that your son will grow up to be an actual ninja, so back off.” Boo's mom outlines her personal dilemma as she comments: I'm torn between the fact that I don't want my children to be teased, but at the same time I don't want my children to feel that they always have to give in to what the world expects of them”. Further, she stated, “No matter what he turns out to be as a grown-up, if he's left handed, right handed, these things do not matter to me, because he is my son”.
After many thousands of years of binary gender role evolution and ascendancy, has the arc finally reached its apex? Is its tide finally turning to meet the crucial point where issues of social justice and equality intersect? Is the inevitable showdown between the two finally at hand?
From the perspective of one such as myself who has struggled throughout 57+ years of life wrangling with the gender conformity issue, this certainly seems to be the case. Can you give me a Hallelujah!? I was born in September of 1953, into a cultural climate struggling with concurrent social concerns of race and emerging civil rights issues. While the focus was not yet on gender diversion, following the Civil Rights Movement, the topic of sexual orientation began to occupy the interests of the scientific community, and eventually in 1973 homosexuality was removed from the Diagnostic Statistical Manual as a mental disorder. Too late however, since the navy had already discharged me from the service for being gay.
Like those young boys, Dyson and Boo, I identify as biologically male. Likely, we share the commonality of transgender nature; me in the sense that I have no strong affiliation to either of the usual binary cultural choices, and them, in that they are too young as yet to have been fully indoctrinated in masculine culture. I too liked to dress up in girl things and play with girls toys, even prior to the stage of development where boys were 'normally' pressured to participate in more male appropriate activities. After a certain age, to express curiosity about the characteristics of the opposite sex was suspect. Indeed to go so far as to emulate their particular culture was anathema.
In chapter One (The Animal With the Weirdest Sex Life) of his 1997 book The Evolution of Human Sexuality Dr. Jared Diamond compares various aspects of sexuality between species. In the chapter he states “Increasingly today, we consider it narrow-minded and despicably prejudiced to denigrate those who do not conform to our own standards.” And while not intentionally mixing sex and gender as metaphors, in the case of these two boys the statement could apply equally as well. True, at age five, they were not yet sexually developed as were the subjects of Dr. Diamond's research, however, his thesis that "human identification with sexual anatomy, physiology and behavior has diverged from our closest relative" is applicable to this particular situation. And, as Boo's mom Sarah attests, not only does it raise a lot of eyebrows; it raises a lot of objections as well.
Why does such an elevation of blood pressure accompany the mention of boys expressing interest in girl things? Even today, the culture war continues to bolster prevailing prejudicial attitudes regarding stereotypical expectations that boys gravitate toward masculine traits in the course of personal development, as it expects girls to gravitate toward feminine traits, in spite of the strides made along the lines of women's rights, particularly in the workforce. One would think we would have learned that lesson and moved on to issues of greater concern, such as poverty, domestic violence etc. Be that as it may, the idea 'Boys being boys and girls being girls' historically has come to be thought of as the 'natural' way for the species to develop. But according to whose perspective?
Emily Martin, author of “The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles” apparently would agree that ideas about femininity and masculinity are entrenched in the manner biologists use language to construct imagery for describing the human reproductive process. The usual lexicon used to characterize masculinity insinuates an implication of power differential between masculine and feminine polarities, in like manner to other polarities such as darkness (evil) and light (good). In reproductive terms the male reproductive process (dominance) is evaluated positively, ie, in terms of its productivity (spermatogenesis). On the other hand, the female reproductive process (submission) is evaluated negatively in terms of its disintegration and necrosis (menstruation). The act itself implies that primary control of the process belongs to the male who, with pelvic thrusting initiatives, does the 'hard work' of 'penetration', while women behave as passive 'receptacle' for the 'transport' of the ejaculation of sperm. According to Martin, biological scientists are responsible for reinforcing perspectives which portray the entire reproductive act as being male dominant instead of characterizing it as the true process of mutuality that it is, with both participants equally responsible for the ultimate coital result.
The inclinations of both the scientific and academic communities to evaluate distinctions between male-female human Sexuality and Gender in terms of a binary model is being challenged as a cultural norm by groups that advocate to deconstruct the gender codes which have arisen over time through continuous articulation, reiteration and reinforcement of ideas that grew out of the concept of dualism inherent in the pair-bonding habits of our earlier relatives. From an evolutionary perspective it would seem to make good sense to acknowledge evidence supporting the facts that each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction, thus supporting the idea that the species needs males to be men, and females to be women in order to ensure that reproduction habits remain intact so that the species avoids extinction. However, reproduction has not always been, and does not necessarily occur only as a result of a pair bonding sexual experience. Even single cells of certain organisms reproduce themselves asexually without the participation of another individual of the same species. Plants also have the ability to reproduce asexually. So life, within the aegis of the proper environmental circumstances, reproduces, adapts and survives autonomically, without the interference and even in spite of well-intended biological engineers.
That being the case, the tendency to impose a biased set of arbitrary constraints upon an individual's otherwise naturally occurring sexual/gender orientation, may interfere with the natural ecological intention of providential creativity. It's been said that it's not nice to fool with mother nature. When people argue in favor of the binary model, they usually do so out of blindness and ignorance as a result of inducement through cultural conditioning, their objections being raised within the narrow confines of their own liminal condition. In that regard, the human species across the globe revels in identification with binary perspective, and there it remains, stuck, enamored, ever peering like narcissus into the mirror of its own reflection. It has forgotten to remember that it was once one before it became two, and thus it remains caught up in the fairy tale myth of its own lingual narrative.
As little girls synthesize the culturally based gender polarities and absorb into themselves the nature of boys, and as boys do the same, the resulting encoded genetics will rewrite the evolutionary script for the next generation. As this occurs the social DNA will evolve us (at least on the spiritual level) into a less dichotomous and thus more integrated species. Our generativity may then become less focused on the physical manifestations of our existence, and more in tune with who we are at the essential core; perhaps more angelic, like the innocent Princess Boys of the world, or better still, like we were when we were a single cell. Perhaps along the way we may learn to honor the innate tendencies, feelings, and inclinations of others; to allow them their uniqueness, without attempting to pathologize them by applying some theoretical context in which to justify biases hidden in one's personal subjectivity.