chappell roan and the non-existence of straight people / “declare your independence” by björk! (audio added 17:11 est 11/18/2024)
are straight people even real? you could be venus as a boy, if you want to be (Claire — you made sure the numbers would line up this way didn’t you? 💞💞💞✨✨✨⭐️⭐️⭐️🌟🌟🌟💫💫💫🌲🌲🌲💚💚💚💛💛💛🌻🌻
from:
8. chappell roan (and the non-existence of straight people)
the best part about listening to chappell roan, at least for me personally, is just celebrating open queerness and sexuality. i mean, chappell roan does not give two shits: she’s letting it all out, and i take that as an inspiration for my own writing.
i feel like for me, “pink pony club” is just like a personal anthem at this point.
like i literally just want to stay at the pink pony club.
i don’t want to be absorbed into cis-heteronormative society for the rest of my life with all of its arbitrary standards, as my old friend B from my clairo post recently pointed out to me when it comes to the many criticisms of my writing:
for me, this is what it means to stay in the pink pony club:
permanent freedom from the cis-heteronormative “moralistic sexual paradigm.”
there is not actually such a binary as this, but for the purposes of my own imagination:
to be outside the pink pony club is to be inside the cis-heteronormative world, and to be inside the cis-heteronormative world is to be trapped by an ever-tightening web of rules, restrictions, mandates, and arbitrary moral principles which all collude toward at least three functions:
the suppression of feelings;
the suppression of connection;
the obliteration of the self in the name of conformity.
the straight person, from the perspective of the queer person, seems to constantly be analyzing whether certain modes of emotional expression & interpersonal connection are appropriate/inappropriate; mature/immature; crossing lines/not crossing lines; adult/childish; manly/girly; sanctified/not sanctified; can/can’t; must/must not; “i am x, therefore y.” of course agreed-upon codes of conduct and behavior are an important component of any healthy relationship:
but seldom do straight people seem to openly communicate about these things.
why?
because they generally accept a pre-packaged list of directions.
and everyone is expected to implicitly accept these directions.
from the perspective of the queer person, the ultimate straight person is never quite himself: because he is always struggling to follow the directions.
it is in this sense that i mean:
the straight person is not real.
i do not mean the straight person is not real in the sense of there being no such thing as a person who identifies with their assigned gender and is primarily attracted to their own sex. of course, these straight people are real. and of course, these straight people can be okay, can communicate, can be in healthy relationships.
but is there not a shallower kind of straight person?
a straight person who is so restricted by the emotional and interpersonal restrictions of cis-heteronormative society that he is unable to connect with other beings on an emotional level — not because he is isolated but because he obliterates himself in the name of adherence to socially constructed cultural norms?
to me this is the ultimate straight person. the ultimate straight person seems to be frightened of feelings, perhaps especially his own, and i do believe he is everywhere.
since the straight person is constantly repressing his feelings, or ensuring that he is only expressing his feelings according to long lists of rules, he has a problem:
once he does let his feelings out, he is unable to let them out in a productive way.
this is what is meant when people say, “straight people are not okay."
but is the straight person real?
like, if you stripped all this socially constructed stuff away and you were just left with the raw being, would you have an innately ultimate straight person?
the thought is not a pleasant one.
i’ll be at the pink pony club 💖
won't make my mama proud, it's gonna cause a scene
she sees her baby girl, I know she's gonna screamgod, what have you done?
you're a pink pony girl
and you dance at the club
oh mama, i'm just having fun
on the stage in my heels
it's where i belong down at thepink pony club
(“pink pony club”)
for me, this is what it means to stay in the pink pony club:
permanent freedom from the cis-heteronormative “moralistic sexual paradigm.”
there is not actually such a binary as this, but for the purposes of my own imagination:
to be outside the pink pony club is to be inside the cis-heternormative world, and to be inside the cis-heternormative world is to be trapped by an ever-tightening web of rules, restrictions, mandates, and arbitrary moral principles which all collude toward at least three functions:
the suppression of feelings;
the suppression of connection;
the obliteration of the self in the name of conformity.
the straight person, from the perspective of the queer person, seems to constantly be analyzing whether certain modes of emotional expression & interpersonal connection are appropriate/inappropriate; mature/immature; crossing lines/not crossing lines; adult/childish; manly/girly; sanctified/not sanctified; can/can’t; must/must not; “i am x, therefore y.” of course agreed-upon codes of conduct and behavior are an important component of any healthy relationship:
but seldom do straight people seem to openly communicate about these things.
why?
because they generally accept a pre-packaged list of directions.
and everyone is expected to implicitly accept these directions.
from the perspective of the queer person, the ultimate straight person is never quite himself: because he is always struggling to follow the directions.
it is in this sense that i mean:
the straight person is not real.
i do not mean the straight person is not real in the sense of there being no such thing as a person who identifies with their assigned gender and is primarily attracted to their own sex. of course, these straight people are real. and of course, these straight people can be okay, can communicate, can be in healthy relationships.
but is there not a shallower kind of straight person?
a straight person who is so restricted by the emotional and interpersonal restrictions of cis-heteronormative society that he is unable to connect with other beings on an emotional level — not because he is isolated but because he obliterates himself in the name of adherence to socially constructed cultural norms?
to me this is the ultimate straight person. the ultimate straight person seems to be frightened of feelings, perhaps especially his own, and i do believe he is everywhere.
since the straight person is constantly repressing his feelings, or ensuring that he is only expressing his feelings according to long lists of rules, he has a problem:
once he does let his feelings out, he is unable to let them out in a productive way.
this is what is meant when people say, “straight people are not okay."
but is the straight person real?
like, if you stripped all this socially constructed stuff away and you were just left with the raw being, would you have an innately ultimate straight person?
the thought is not a pleasant one.
i’ll be at the pink pony club 💖
won't make my mama proud, it's gonna cause a scene
she sees her baby girl, I know she's gonna screamgod, what have you done?
you're a pink pony girl
and you dance at the club
oh mama, i'm just having fun
on the stage in my heels
it's where i belong down at thepink pony club
(“pink pony club”)
9. björk (and a declaration of independence)
“venus as a boy”: i used to listen to that song and just think, maybe that could be me! but honestly, it wasn’t enough. i don’t want to be “venus as a boy.” i want to be the ocean manifesting as a mermaid who goes by “she.”
even so, i love björk: a friend and i were talking about growing up and sort of just thinking, “oh right, björk, that weird icelandic lady,” and that is probably about what i thought of her back in 2003 when i was 15.
but lately i’ve been getting into björk!! what i love about björk is the same spirit that my 15-year-old mind identified as “that weird icelandic lady”:
björk is asking you to declare your independence.
start your own currency
make your own stamp
protect your language
(justice)declare independence
don't let them do that to you
declare independence
don't let them do that to you(“declare your independence”)