Thank you! I always enjoy listening to your column twice over before picking up the phone and talking it over with a friend.
When i think about kink as taboo in mainstream queer communities it’s hard not to immediately align this tendency of the mainstream cis, white & moneyed queers to cordon off (and need cop protection from) other taboos—like solidarity with Palestinians in their liberation struggle. I’m glad you brought that into the discussion here.
Within American queer communities (and especially at Pride marches themselves) I very much see support for Israel is positioned as as the mainstream, “safe,” homonationalist (colonial), and openly welcome in the march. Palestinian and other anti-Zionist queers are positioned as not just oppositional—especially when shutting down the beloved parade—but also taboo in their presence at all. The way the mainstream (Zionist aligned) queer institutions & community set the terms of what can/can’t be discussed (see: Autostraddle’s longtime policy of deleting all comments regarding Palestine with the excuse of “Zionism is too complicated for us to moderate”) just strikes me as parallel to rendering the presence of kink, kinky people, or discussions of kink as *themselves* taboo.
This is not to make any false equivalencies between a violent, ongoing colonization and intra-community policing, but the willingness of mainstream US queer institutions and community to render entire people, communities, and struggles “taboo” has long been an effective tool of silence, and of preventing necessary solidarity.
Thank you! I always enjoy listening to your column twice over before picking up the phone and talking it over with a friend.
When i think about kink as taboo in mainstream queer communities it’s hard not to immediately align this tendency of the mainstream cis, white & moneyed queers to cordon off (and need cop protection from) other taboos—like solidarity with Palestinians in their liberation struggle. I’m glad you brought that into the discussion here.
Within American queer communities (and especially at Pride marches themselves) I very much see support for Israel is positioned as as the mainstream, “safe,” homonationalist (colonial), and openly welcome in the march. Palestinian and other anti-Zionist queers are positioned as not just oppositional—especially when shutting down the beloved parade—but also taboo in their presence at all. The way the mainstream (Zionist aligned) queer institutions & community set the terms of what can/can’t be discussed (see: Autostraddle’s longtime policy of deleting all comments regarding Palestine with the excuse of “Zionism is too complicated for us to moderate”) just strikes me as parallel to rendering the presence of kink, kinky people, or discussions of kink as *themselves* taboo.
This is not to make any false equivalencies between a violent, ongoing colonization and intra-community policing, but the willingness of mainstream US queer institutions and community to render entire people, communities, and struggles “taboo” has long been an effective tool of silence, and of preventing necessary solidarity.
Thanks! And agreed—"taboo" can have a lot of names and take up a lot more space than we're aware of.