On sexuality

Jock — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 01:45:42 +0000

Some people appear to be criticising the way Simon has handled the sexuality issue on the basis that what he said a couple of weeks ago was misleading, or perhaps some kind of legalese "technical" answer along the lines of - "Are you gay?" "No, I've had sexual relations with women". Or that he's been avoiding the "B" word ("bisexual"). Many such people are people who should know better, having often struggled themselves with their own sexual identity. Some have not, but would just prefer some kind of "certainty" that they can then celebrate because they understand the label.

I believe that as liberals we should all accept and celebrate that there are a whole range of sexualities and that people self-define. This nineteenth century word invented to describe a pseudo-medical "condition" (and by implication some kind of either illness or moral deficiency) has no place in the twenty-first century liberal's dictionary. Until we reject such categories we will continue to see people hounded till someone pins them down to some neat classification (including those categories we decide label someone a criminal or of criminal intent).

I always remember a constituency dinner where Conrad (Lord Russell to non-Lib Dem readers) explained that a fundamental difference between us and Labour was that we treated every person as an individual where Labour tries to categorise everyone into "manageable" groups. To me, that individuality has *got* to include something as basic to our make-ups as our sexual self-definition.

Now, whether Simon shares that view and whether he was trying to convey some personal self-definition is another matter and I/we obviously don't know. But I just want to say how much I loathe these attempts to categorise people according to some arbitrarily defined labels. My only criticism of Simon if this is the case is his belief that this could be conveyed through our conventionally hide-bound national newspapers!

Jeez - I must read some Foucault...:)

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On sexuality