bitterfig

Saturday night, I went to the movies.  Given my obsession with Tim Roth and my love of comic books (not to mention a long time interest in Ed Norton’s work) it probably seems like I’d want to see The Incredible Hulk but I honestly don’t have any desire to see it.  On the other hand I was very excited to see Tom Kalin’s Savage Grace.  Kalin directed Swoon, one of my favorite movies, in 1992 but hasn’t done a full length film since then so in my world the opening of Savage Grace was a big deal. 

 

Like Swoon, which dealt with the Leopold and Loeb murder, Savage Grace is based on an actual case—the 1972 murder of socialite Barbara Baekeland by her son Tony.  Barbara (Julianne Moore) is married to Brooks Baekeland (Stephen Dillane) whose family earned a fortune from the invention of bakelite plastics.  Their marriage is deeply troubled.  Brooks is discontented with the sort of pretentious, upper-crust social circles that Barbara obsessively courts.  From the beginning, Barbara seems dangerously unstable or even mentally ill.  She puts a great deal of work into being accepted by high society then sabotages her own efforts with inappropriate outbursts—in one scene she begins as a doting hostess and ends up denouncing her guests. 

 

Barbara’s behavior alarms and exasperates her husband but Barbara creates an unwavering and worshipful ally in her son Tony (played by Eddie Redmayne as an adult).  Which works very well when Tony is a precocious child but gets much more complicated when Tony becomes a sexually confused adult and Barbara and Brooks’ marriage dissolves. 

 

It’s quite an amazing little film, darkly comic and profoundly disturbing.  Anyone who’s read my fiction knows I have a sort of twisted fascination with the idea of incest as a trope for the way family members use and misuse each other.  Savage Grace brought these ideas chillingly to life.  Barbara refuses to allow the appropriate boundaries between herself and her son and a horrible interdependence grows between them that leads first to the scariest threesome on film (suddenly the brother and sister in The Dreamers seem vaguely wholesome) to an outright sexual act between mother and son that was frankly, shocking (people in the theater, including me, we literally gasping).  I knew there was incest in the film but by the time Barbara mounts her son he seems so emotionally damaged that it seems like an act of deliberately, selfish and nearly violent cruelty on her part. 

 

Really chilling, and yet despite all the implicit emotional violence part of me thought it was a really cool scene in the sense that I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman being that aggressive or that much in charge during a sex scene before, at least not in an American film.  It’s sort of a shame (but not really a surprise) that the rare sexually dominate woman (or femme seme as I like to say) is a bit of a monster.

Last night I read a couple of posts at telesilla ’s journal on heterosexual privilege in fandom that really got me to thinking on a more general level about sexuality, honesty, deception and the advantages I often gain by allowing myself to be preceived as straight in most of my day to day interactions. 

It's something that's been confusing to me for a long time. When I was in college I took a class on the literature of the Harlem Renaissance. Many novels of this period, such as James Weldon Johnson’s Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Nella Larsen’s Passing dealt with the issue of light skinned blacks that were able to pass as white. Stories of passing in novel’s and films were a vital part of the popular imagination until the 1960’s when they were more or less rendered obsolete by the movement towards racial pride and changing the social boundaries that divided black from white (though new stories of passing do occasionally emerge, Philip Roth’s The Human Stain for example).

While I realize there's a big differance between race and sexuality I’ve always been drawn to the idea of passing as a trope for my sexual identity. Since I was a young child, I’ve been bisexual, attracted to both men and women. I’ve probably kissed a few more men then women, but I’ve had sex with exactly one of each and when I was dating a few years ago I went out with both men and women. I am not heterosexual, I am other, queer. 

And yet I realize that most people who encounter me “read” me as heterosexual. I don’t look like people think a non-heterosexual woman looks so I’m automatically assumed to be straight. So long as I keep my mouth shut and my behaviors in check I am allowed to partake of the privileges that come with being a heterosexual. 

And there are privileges that come with heterosexuality. To most people it is the norm and being treated as a normal person and not a freak or a deviant is a privilege. Not having my parents freak the hell out is a privilege. Not being perceived as a threat or a target is a privilege. I reap these privileges but as a result I feel alienated from both the heterosexuals who assume I am one of them and the like and am sometimes treated as inauthentic, a fake, someone who isn’t really queer. I’ve always felt that unlike many of the people I’ve known who are “authentic” homosexuals I have a choice, but do I really? 

When I was in a relationship with a man, I still thought of women (a lot). If I were with a woman would I stop being sexually interested in men? Probably not. I’d be exclusive because fierce loyalty and exclusive devotion to a single partner is in my nature but I’d still think about men, still be turned on by them. I can’t be a “real” lesbian any more than I can be a “real” heterosexual. 

I try to be as honest as possible about what I am but it would hardly be appropriate for me to announce my sexual history and preferences at say a job interview or upon meeting a new person. Frankly most people aren’t interested in who I am nor should they be. 

With family and people who become friends it’s more difficult. When is it appropriate to reveal to say a co-worker you’re friendly with that you swing both ways? If they’ve been forthcoming about their sexuality (be it straight or “real” gay) does that mean I can be forthcoming about mine? With my parents I’ve dropped some major hints just because I don’t want to lie, but is it right to push the issue when I know they’ll be upset? 

I think that sexuality is a very complicated thing and must people, be they straight or gay, prefer view it as an absolute and not to acknowledge all the nuance and gradations and that it is this limitation and not personal deception that leads to the sort of passing I’ve spent most of my life engaged in.

I’ve just finished reading two books, Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Francesca Lia Block’s Psyche in a Dress.

( cut for length and spoilers )