The issue of social recognition of homosexuality and gender identities can lead to misunderstandings and fuel controversies and discussions that have been around for decades.
Especially among gays, therefore among males, a sort of artificial division has always developed between the so-called libertines and the normalizers.. A purely theoretical discussion, far removed from the concrete experiences of the male homosexual masses. The lesbian world is a distinct and distant sphere, one that, since feminism, has been accustomed to engaging with, proposing theories and experiences that have allowed it to more clearly distinguish the meaning of bodily self-determination, intimate sensations, multiple sexualities, and feelings connected or separate from the sexual act. For men, the difficulties are manifold; the relatively broad sense of sexual frugality, the lure of clandestine darkness, the accumulation of bodies, genitals, mouths, and diverse practices, often pushes them to confuse time, place, desire, and feelings with passion. From here, first the open-air places of sexual encounter (still present and in many cases dangerous to the point of generating murders and robberies), then the public baths from the 19th century onwards, arriving at the cinemas, the first free beaches, the legendary trips to Southern Italy drawn by the wild ancestral sexuality of the heterosexual male who "fucked" the "pederast".
Back then, the distinction was clear: homosexuals were those who were sodomized, while the others considered themselves and were considered virile males, therefore heterosexual. It was the sexual revolution of the feminist movements and the sexual freedoms promoted by gays and lesbians that overturned these roles, leading to today, where Gay sexuality and sentimentality mostly occur between "equals", that is, between people who recognize each other's differences and cultures other than those of the heterosexual male.. Even in this case, one should always use the plural, since just as there is no single homosexuality, there is no single heterosexuality.
The much criticized gay clubs, which let's be clear in this country have fulfilled two essential functions, namely bringing homosexuality out of hiding, thus contributing decisively to the explosion of the Italian LGBT movement from the 1990s onwards And provide the necessary money so that politics could be carried out, represent a node in the unfinished cultural journey of Italian homosexuality.
It's nothing new to criticize LGBT organizations outright, especially those that, thanks to the recreational circuit—such as Arcigay—or evenings like Muccassassina for Mieli and many others, organize sex parties and then fight for the recognition of marriage.
Furthermore, identifying a contradiction between the promotion of the free exercise of sexuality and the political and social struggle for the legal recognition of gay couples, anti-discrimination laws, etc., smacks of the ancient moralism of Italy's diverse religious and ideological churches. Is it possible that feminism has taught us nothing at all? That we are still here today discussing the meaning of the obscene, of free sexual expression, of the body as a private thing that does not need public recognition?
Confusion still reigns supreme if we fail to distinguish between theories and concrete protections? No heterosexual would even consider fighting for the right to self-identity by starting from their private monogamy or communal sexuality. Meanwhile, they have no need for any public or social affirmation, since they can enjoy a heterosexist and chauvinistic world; this is their world, and they defend every possible space within it. Hence the need, not only for homosexuals and trans people, to assert their visibility, their existence, by engaging unequally with a society of discriminatory conformity.
Does this lead to following heterosexual models such as the imitation of monogamy? Let me say that this is nonsense. It's enough to know the daily lives of a few gays and lesbians to understand that The connection between the relationship between a couple and sexual fidelity is absolutely complicated and varies from couple to couple., as are the many imbalances and balances that arise from it.
As a community that still does not recognize a strong political and social value, we are in the phase of experimentation, of free attempts to live alone, as a couple, in community, where everything emerges except respectability.
On this point, I'd also like to comment on what is perceived in community life in large and/or important Italian cities, and what happens in the much larger and more widespread provinces. There's a risk of a partial, elitist vision, linked more to one's idealistic beliefs than to the reality of one's experiences; hence the risk of believing oneself to be fabulously top of the class, while elsewhere new cultures and reflections are being experimented with. From Aosta to Syracuse, the classic issues of the homosexual avant-garde are bypassed and one's own livability is constructed within the province, in micro and macro cosmos fertile in cultural production and social life.
I defend dark rooms as spaces and places that have saved thousands of gays from street violence., I defend the clubs for the role they have played and can still play. I defend the battles for legal recognition of LGBT couples, because they have already changed the culture of Italian society and because they represent the only way to achieve dignity. I also add that Gay marriage, true equality of rights and duties, more effectively undermines the patriarchal structure of the traditional family, more than many respectable and shared theories on the violent history of the family structure.
But isn't the real issue perhaps that it's still difficult for gay men to talk about themselves only in terms of sexual recognition? Feelings, loves, intimate conflicts are kept away from theoretical debate, perhaps because it should be admitted that gay machismo is hard to die, that misogyny, also understood as the rejection of one's own femininity, is still present. Doesn't the public tenderness between two muscular, hairy men bother many gay activists, too? Just as the affection between young gays doesn't raise the suspicion that they're closer to lesbians? So, far from one's own proud masculinity, perhaps even declined in feminine gay slang, but always distinct from the approach of the opposite sex?
I agree that the movement has not delved into cultural debate for a long time and this has made us fall into a normalizing drift in which too many gays have taken refuge, I recognize that it is on the terrain of culture, of the method of even ruthless analysis of ourselves and of ourselves that a new phase of the movement, which today appears very quarrelsome, is truly being built.
After the Pride season, we can say that a new generation of young men and women has taken over Italy's squares and streets. What does this tell us? That it's not true that all is lost, that uniformity is overwhelming, that the various archipelagos that make up the LGBT movement have no chance to regain their voice. It depends on us, on us alone. We can be a true agent of change, even if we aren't fully aware of it, full of many ideas, even conflicting ones, but always striving to seek new possibilities, changes, and light.
In a jacket or tie (which at Pride is more funny than anything else) in sequins, practicing or not practicing sex, love, abstinence, transformations, transits, what has value is theOur emergence, our being there, our sharing of what was once summarized as "the personal is political"".
The debate was opened by an article by Emiliano Settimi, "Down with gay respectability," published in Liberazione on July 5.
