Oh, I absolutely agree that all the terms we've used are bound up with our own understandings of gender and sexuality. But then, the very boundaries of these discussions are framed this way. I don't know if we even can move beyond them.
I take your point about women's sexuality and the origins of the idea of romantic friendship. My own asexuality blinds me to the ways women's sexuality are devalued, I admit. But I don't know how we can counter heteronormative ways of looking at the sexualities of historical figures (which I apparently have been using in this discussion, for which I apologise) while not projecting our own ideas about gender and sexuality upon them.
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Date: 2010-09-14 04:41 pm (UTC)I take your point about women's sexuality and the origins of the idea of romantic friendship. My own asexuality blinds me to the ways women's sexuality are devalued, I admit. But I don't know how we can counter heteronormative ways of looking at the sexualities of historical figures (which I apparently have been using in this discussion, for which I apologise) while not projecting our own ideas about gender and sexuality upon them.