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De-marginalizing Ateqeh’s story


Sixteen-year-old Ateqeh Rajabi was accused of engaging in premarital sex, and was subsequently hanged in Neka, Iran, last August. Her story remains unknown to most and is passively handled by those who seem reluctant to choose between universal “rules” of human rights and the exceedingly permissive standards of cultural relativism.  

According to court sources, Ateqeh, who was denied access to a lawyer, told the religious judge who presided over her case that he should punish the perpetrators of moral corruption rather than the victims. She then removed her headscarf, and declared that she was the victim of an older man’s advances. Immediately after her testimony, Ateqeh became the tenth child “offender” to receive a death sentence since 1990 in Iran.  

Following her execution, the presiding judge publicly announced that he had endorsed and pushed for the death warrant because Ateqeh possessed a “sharp tongue and had undressed [removed her headscarf] in court.” Ateqeh’s co-defendant, an older male, was sentenced to 100 lashes and was released once his punishment was completed.  

While numerous human rights organizations including Amnesty International have decried the tragic fate of Ateqeh, the story has largely been cast aside, placed on the fringes of mainstream media.  

It is an outrage, a worldwide shame, that our selective interests in keeping our words and positions neutral can render the murder of a female child not quite newsworthy enough.  

—Toyin Adeyemi

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Linguists with a cause


The bookish stereotype of linguists just got a little sexier. In today’s article in The Los Angeles Times, Sebastian Rotella draws attention to the power of the word by profiling the work being done by linguists employed by anti-terrorism agencies.

The focus on world relations with the Middle East has made bilingual, bicultural Arabic-speaking investigators and translators the hottest thing since sliced bread. The risks Rotella lists give linguists the romantic glow that the Indiana Jones trilogy lent to the study of archaeology.

Ideally, translators and interpreters are teamed with detectives; the precision and subtleties involved in the nuances of culture and language mean that this job requires a high level of human sensitivity which computers can’t match. The French interpreter Rotella interviewed for his article, whom he refers to as “Wadad,” believes the best linguists are bilingual and bicultural from childhood:

“Otherwise, you might understand the words but not the meaning … You have to understand the dialect, [the] mentality, [the] history. If you don’t know the two civilizations, it’s very difficult. A North African might constantly mention Allah in his conversations. But that’s common. It doesn’t mean he’s a religious extremist … There are Arabists in France who are brilliant intellectuals and know a lot, but I think there are things that escape them. I think if Arabic is not your mother tongue, if you don’t read the Koran from the perspective of a devout Muslim and try to see it with the mind-set of the time when it was written, you miss things. The academics try to make everything fit into their theories.”

—Michaele Shapiro

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“To-do’s” before Inauguration Day


Recently, I received an email from a cousin of mine. The substance of the email was a list of 30 things that people should do before President George W. Bush is inaugurated for the second time. Although the email was meant as a joke, my cousin inadvertently managed to sum up, in perfect language, the deepest current of the philosophy of liberalism. Liberals around the country still bare a venomous hatred for the democratically chosen President of the United States. A month has passed since the election, but many liberals are still involved in a somewhat lame campaign to put a vicious sting into the republican victory.

Comically, most of the items on my cousin’s “To Do” list are either entirely contradictory or based on gossip that has bounced around the echo chamber for so long, that lazy or disinterested people mistake it for fact. Politics is a brutal sport, and you can be sure that if someone makes an accusation and gives very little or no evidence to sustain the charge, chances are you are playing with a liberal. So, for the next several weeks, I will focus on one or more of these items that more or less summarizes the position of the liberal left in this country, and try to pound some sense into people.

TO DO: Start a day of school without saying a prayer

Liberals love the First Amendment. They love it. Liberals have an uncanny ability to use the First Amendment as both a shield and a sword. When anyone attacks a liberal for his/her ridiculous assertions to ban Christianity, back down to terrorist interests, and that George W. Bush is the reincarnation of Hitler, liberals hold up the First Amendment crying and crying, “Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Speech.”

Simultaneously, whenever somebody wants to use his freedom of speech to say a prayer before class, recite the pledge of allegiance or, most recently, try to hand out the Declaration of Independence to students, liberals rear back on their hind legs (I am convinced that liberals walk on all fours when I’m not looking), and bleat like billy goats “Seppppperation of Chuurrrrrch and Staaaaaaaaate!” Just for posterity, it’s worth mentioning that the Constitution doesn’t mention anything about a “separation of church and state.” Rather, pursuant to Article V of the Constitution, the first amended article, called “Article I,” and loosely referred to as the First Amendment says:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibit the free exercise thereof; or abridge the freedom of speech, or of the press, or of the people peaceably to assemble.”

The amendment, along with nine others, was proposed to the states in 1789 and was ratified by most of the states by 1791. The First Amendment was passed as a reaction to the notion of a national church, such as the Church of England, from which their ancestors had fled. It was not intended to stop school children from saying a humble prayer before class or to strike down the pledge of allegiance.

Only liberals could have such a vague sense of history that they would confuse the First Amendment with a law prohibiting all expression of faith in the public sphere. Liberal groups and politicians have distorted the First Amendment to mean, “Nobody should be offended — ever.” Unless of course you are a liberal accusing the President of the United States of being a murdering fascist, then the “no offending” rule becomes sort of a loose guideline; after all, “freedom of speech, freedom of speech!”

The “no offending” rule has now blown up all over the country as Christmas draws closer. In a school in New Jersey, the holiday band performance is not allowed to even play instrumental versions of popular Christmas songs. A Christian church group is prohibited from entering a Christian float into the city’s annual parade of lights, which happens to feature a float by gay American Indians recognized as holy people; Lion Dancing, which is a Chinese New Year Tradition meant to chase away evil spirits; and German folk dancers. The parade’s spokesman, Michael Krikorian, told the Rocky Mountain News that entering a Christmas-themed float into the parade “could be disrespectful to other people who enjoy a parade each year.”

In Florida, a school disallowed any references to Christmas while simultaneously allowing the open celebration of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. Luckily, a court overturned the school’s ruling, citing the exclusion of Christmas references as discriminatory. But, out in John Kerry land, California, a school in Cupertino, California has banned a teacher from distributing the Declaration of Independence to his students. In its “Week in Review,” The New York Times cited Charles C. Haynes, a senior scholar at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center, who said that conservatives were trying to use historical documents to “back-door the introduction of religion into the curriculum.” NO! He’s discovered our dark and evil secret … we’re trying to teach kids about America by using (gasp!) American historical documents! Indeed, we have no shame.

What is puzzling though, is why conservatives even need to “back-door” teaching the influence of Christianity in a historical context. In California, where the 38-year-old Steven Williams is banned from using the Declaration of Independence because of its scary and “unconstitutional” reference to “the creator”, teachers are required to teach their eighth grade students Islam. Yes, that’s right. It offends liberals to hear the name of Jesus spoken out loud in public. Yet they are perfectly at ease sending their children to learn all the great things about a religion, which prompted 19 people to fly airplanes into the World Trade Center. One thing is for sure, if the Declaration of Independence goes, the next things to go are the Emancipation Proclamation (after all, it was God who made everyone equal, right?). In the not-too-distant future, teachers will be handing out historical documents that will have words and sections blacked-out like declassified FBI files. Still dissatisfied with the “intolerance” of the people, liberals will decide that somehow the Constitution isn’t quite in keeping with the tolerance and understanding expressed in … the Constitution, and decide that it too must be sacrificed so that there will no longer ever be a person with hurt feelings.  

—Christopher White

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Stuck in a moment


What do Bono and the film Saving Private Ryan have to do with the war in Iraq? The New York Times reporter Frank Rich draws some connections between the censorship of pop culture and the way our media is representing President Bush’s White Elephant.

Three Sundays ago, in his article, “Bono’s New Casualty: ‘Private Ryan’,” Rich reported that this Veteran’s Day, 66 ABC affiliates “revolted against their own network and refused to broadcast ‘Saving Private Ryan.’” Though Spielberg’s film had been previously aired on Veteran’s Day in 2001 and 2002 “without incident, and despite the protests of family-values groups,” the repercussions of NBC’s public chastisement by the Federal Communications Commission left its mark upon this holiday season’s entertainment.

What has changed in the last year? What is it that led so many affiliates to exercise self-censorship when ABC had already given them the go-ahead to broadcast Saving Private Ryan? According to Rich, it wasn’t fear of terrorism or low ratings that drove them to censor Spielberg’s WWII tribute, but rather “fear that their own government would punish them for exercising freedom of speech.” Rich writes:

“What makes the ‘Ryan’ case both chilling and a harbinger of what’s to come is that it isn’t about Janet Jackson and sex but about the presentation of war at a time when we are fighting one.”

Rich notes that some of the companies who exercised self-censorship in refusing to broadcast Ryan are also owners of major American newspapers:

“[It] leaves you wondering what other kind of self-censorship will be practiced next. If these media outlets are afraid to show a graphic Hollywood treatment of a 60-year-old war starring the beloved Tom Hanks because the feds might fine them, toy with their licenses or deny them permission to expand their empires, might they defensively soften their news divisions’ efforts to present the graphic truth of an ongoing war?”

I never thought I’d be promoting the presentation of war on television. Then again, I never thought I’d live to see the day when our rights to know the facts are threatened. It’s possible the only thing worse than showing the violence of war is to live in a society where such violence is swept under the carpet.

—Michaele Shapiro

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Quote of note


“Some people think that the women should be confined to their houses and put veils on and all that and they should not move out — absolutely wrong.”

— Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, speaking to the BBC about the merits of a moderate understanding of Islam.  

General Musharraf has been busily chattering away over the past few days, condemning the current approach of the war on terror and admitting that the trail of Osama bin Laden, the leader and figurehead of al-Qaeda, has disappeared into the ether.  

—Mimi Hanaoka

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Out: Loud and proud


issue banner

The 2004 election results gave voice to an influential 22 percent minority of “moral values” voters, mostly folks against gay marriage. But what are the moral values of other minorities? We at InTheFray thought the year wouldn’t be complete without an exploration of the rarely heard views of a few other groups.

We begin with queers. American Indians have long been under- or misrepresented in mainstream U.S. culture, and queer Indians even more so. Emily Alpert investigates how the Two-Spirit movement has grown over the last 10 years in Rainbow and red. Meanwhile, Park Slope tribe member Keely Savoie, in her debut column, explores how Democrats sold out gays following the election.

On the subject of sex, we turn to Editor Laura Nathan’s interview with porn star and feminist-activist Christi Lake, who has some startling views about her job and the media’s representation of it. Writer Eric Duncan reveals what it is like to go through life being called “‘Sugar,’ ‘Peaches,’ ‘Hon,’ ‘Miss,’ ‘Sweet Thing,’ ‘Girl,’ and ‘Little Lady, ’” in Propositions, a fictional tale of a waitress who resents being treated like a sex object, and then decides to oblige.

Next, we make a quick stop at the Amazon.com Theater, as columnist Afi Scruggs returns to ITF with a Christmas critique of the megalith’s latest marketing ploy. Then we escape from all things commercial, as photographer Tewfic El-Sawy shares a fabulous photo essay centered on the Delhi shrine of Sufi Saint Nizzamuddin. Think mystical love of God, combined with a devotion to the poor on earth. It’s a combination that very well could put you in the proper holiday spirit.

Nicole Leistikow
Managing Editor
Baltimore, Maryland

Coming mid-December:
Don’t forget to vote for your favorite pieces of the past year in our annual BEST OF ITF Survey!
Also, Jairus Grove’s review of Cornell West’s new book Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism.

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Quote of note


“We don’t know where he is. He might be anywhere.”

— Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, speaking to CNN about Osama bin Laden, the leader and figurehead of al-Qaeda.  

“Mission Accomplished,” read the sign aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003, as Bush announced that “from Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al-Qaeda killers,” and that “al-Qaeda is wounded.”

—Mimi Hanaoka

  

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Rainbow and red

Queer American Indians from New York to San Francisco are showing both their spirits.


What surprised Sabrina Wolf, when she came out to her American Indian grandmother, was the older woman’s lack of surprise.

“I started by telling her, ‘I’m different,’” the white-haired, soft butch activist recalls. And she had this look of, ‘Yeah, I know.’ And then she said, ‘There’s people like you at home [among Indians], and it’s a good thing.”

In addition, her grandmother advised her, “You’re gonna hear … a lot in your life, that’s it’s a bad thing, here (among white people), but it’s not a bad thing, and you’ll know about it later.’”

Wolf, a lifelong San Franciscan and “urban Indian” of both white and Native ancestry, was taken aback by her grandmother’s nonchalant response — a response which, she later learned, was representative of many Native groups. The idea that various American Indian tribes historically recognized and even gave special roles to untraditionally gendered tribe members was written about in 1968, in an academic article by Professor Sue-Ellen Jacobs. But its wider acceptance has come about more recently with the development of vocal groups of queer Indians who, in addition to mining Indian history for traces of their presence, have created a modern name for people like themselves: “two-spirit.”

Coined in 1990 at an annual conference of queer-identified Native people, the International Two-Spirit Gathering, the term “two-spirit,” encompasses various American Indian traditions of tolerance and celebration of gender-variant people. Unlike modern concepts of sexuality, two-spiritedness refers less to sexual orientation than to gender, reflecting the idea that in a single person, both masculine and feminine energies may reside. Prior to the conference, the concept was referred to by different terms in each tribe: For example, winkte in Lakota, a Sioux dialect, nádleehí in Navajo, or problematically called berdache, a French word sometimes translated as “slave boy.”

As an active member of the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits (BAAITS), a group organized in 1998 out of Gay American Indians (a product of 1970s San Francisco), Wolf now knows that two-spirits have a long and respected history within many North American tribes. With her own knowledge of two-spirit tradition, Wolf’s grandmother was receptive to the news that her granddaughter wasn’t straight. In contrast, Wolf hardly considered coming out to her white family, who seemed hostile to queer sexuality.  

Similarly, Miko Thomas, a Chickasaw member of BAAITS, originally from Oklahoma, was relieved by his Native father and grandfather’s nonchalance at his coming out —  a far cry from his white mother’s unease.

But not all Indians have been accepting. The tradition of giving respected roles to specially gendered tribe members came under attack from colonization and Christianization, was all-but erased in official histories until the 1950s, and still finds resistance today. Reclaiming two-spirit identity is an enterprise fraught with intertribal tensions — made still more difficult by the political endangerment of the Native community. And yet it offers American Indians a unique queer space, one both cozily familiar and excitingly new, organized along different principles than the mainstream, majority-white queer world.

Harlan Pruden, founder of the Northeast Two-Spirit Society, decorates his office with photos of people who are out, proud, and Indian.

Creating a two-spirit community

In New York City, the challenge of organizing two-spirit communities has been taken on by Harlan Pruden, the square-jawed and impeccably put-together founder of the newly-formed Northeast Two-Spirit Society.  Leaning back at his desk at New York’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Community Center, where he works as a coordinator of an anti-addiction program, Pruden muses on history, surrounded by splashy photos of drag queens and powwows.

“There was a time on this land in which we did have full equality,” he comments. “There was a gender analysis with an open acceptance of same-sex couples and relationships. There was a place for all of it, and I think that it’s a shame that it’s been ignored.” Pruden sees this history as crucial to current two-spirit identity. “There is a model there that can be reactivated, claimed and worked on”, he says, although he adds hastily, “There is no going back to a traditional model.”

Much of Pruden’s own knowledge of Native practices and attitudes regarding queer people comes from anthropologist Walter L. Williams’ 1986 book, The Spirit and the Flesh. Drawing on interviews in a variety of North American tribes, primarily in the United States, Williams highlights how, prior to colonial interference, two-spirit peoples were privileged to traverse the gender line by walking freely between gendered tents, for example, or taking on both types of gendered work — hunting and beadwork. In many cases, specific ritual roles, like holding the eagle’s wing or blessing marriages, were designated for two-spirit people. Compensation for ritual services meant that two-spirit people often prospered within their communities, and could use their financial wherewithal to support adopted children.

Pruden notes that the current LGBT movement traces its history from events that are largely European, Western, or relatively recent, like New York’s 1969 Stonewall riots, in which gay bar patrons protested a police raid. Of this limited perspective, Pruden says, “To me, that’s bullshit.”

And there is evidence to back him up. The 1980s and 1990s saw a host of publications and research on gay Native traditions. Yet, while Pruden hopes to raise awareness of Native communities’ traditional acceptance, tolerance, and even reverence of gender-variant people, and to draw strength from an authentic queer history, he has no illusions that a complete history can be uncovered, or should be.

According to Pruden, the history of acceptance toward queer identity in American Indian culture has been concealed by two major factors: colonial suppression of Native sexual tolerance, and Christian Indians’ rejection of traditional practice.

Thus, for most American Indians, identifying as two-spirit is a process of discovery, not an organic outgrowth of living in modern communities. Pruden explains that, “even if there is a reactivation or an honoring of two-spirit people, sometimes there’s not even an explanation because of the stigma associated with it.”

Pruden recalls being approached, after a lecture on his Woodlands Cree reservation in Northeastern Alberta, Canada, by a woman who said she finally understood why, during the men’s sweat lodge, the medicine men permitted her gay cousin to hold the eagle’s wing — a role of honor traditionally accorded to a two-spirit person. “[T]hat elder was reactivating and staying true to the tradition,” explains Pruden, “by finding someone who was queer-identified and giving him that high office.” Prior to Pruden’s talk on two-spirit traditions, however, the man’s cousin “had no point of reference, as a straight woman, to know what was happening before her.”

“You have to start looking for things that are incredibly subtle,” continues Pruden, “and if you’re an outsider, or it’s not of your tradition, you can’t even see what’s going on.”

Seeking suppressed traditions of tolerance

Jeannette Torres, the only female member in the nascent Northeast Two-Spirit Society, angrily recounts the violence visited upon two-spirit people in the colonial era. Torres is of both Peruvian and Puerto Rican heritage, but she identifies mainly with her Incan lineage, having been raised by her father’s Peruvian family who immigrated to the United States in the 1950s. With her pixie haircut, men’s clothing and lipstick, she seems an apt illustration of the gender play inherent in the two-spirit idea. Her black eyes flash as she describes the brutal treatment of two-spirit people by European colonists. “When these colonists came, British and Spanish, they practically decimated us,” she says. “The communities kind of hid what was left of their [queer] people — either hid them, or kept it on the down-low.”

On top of colonial persecution came Christian rejection of the two-spirit tradition. Miko Thomas was combing through his great-grandfather’s Bibles in his native Oklahoma when he found a sermon condemning a Choctaw stomp-dance leader who “either condoned homosexuality or he himself was homosexual.” For Thomas, it was proof-positive that two-spirits had existed previously. “This was the first time that I ever saw anything like this about my tribe.” Previously, a Christian elder in his tribe had told him, “‘There are no gay Indians. There were never any gay Indians.’”

Pruden likewise contends that he has “met elders that just lied to me — Christian elders, rather than traditionalist elders.” At an American Indian men’s health summit, Pruden says, he asked an elder what the word was for “the two-spirit folk. And he’s like, what is two-spirit? So I explained, and he goes, ‘I know what that is — the word is wiktigu.’ Wiktigu is a cannibalistic spirit … a way of keeping kids close to the camp.”

Harlan says his confusion cleared, however, when he heard the elder speak, claiming that the medicine bow is a symbol for the Christian cross, and that braided sweetgrass symbolized the holy Trinity. “I just dismissed what he said, and since then I went seeking actual, traditional elders.”

The lack of open, explicit dialogue about queerness in Native culture means that most two-spirit people, as Thomas laments, “have to go through a book to find where you’re represented as a gay Indian.” The dearth of research on specific aspects of two-spirit life can be frustrating; there’s a notable lack of information on two-spirit women, a gap that Pruden attributes to male privilege: “We live in a patriarchal society. Who has the choice and the power to sit around and write?” He points out that Walter L. Williams himself is a white gay man.

However, some two-spirit people have found that tolerance is nonetheless expressed in Native communities — if not through explicit practice, in quieter, everyday behavior.  Ben Geboe, one of the founders of Wewa and Barcheampe, a previous effort at two-spirit organizing in New York City, found that in his Native community, being queer set him apart but did not isolate him. Blue-eyed and pale-skinned, he is usually read, racially, as white, but is of both Sioux and Norwegian descent, and grew up on a reservation in Mission, South Dakota. Growing up, Geboe recalls, “People knew that I was very effeminate.” Though he was sometimes called winkte, a Sioux word that translates, roughly, as “woman’s way,” Geboe explains that “it was never derogatory, never meant as an insult. It was more a kind of joking, a subtle ribbing.” Both his Sioux and his Norwegian family were supportive of his coming out.

Torres shares Pruden’s frustration with the lack of research on women, and adds that she remains uneasy with some extinct two-spirit traditions, as uncovered in books like Williams’s. She explains that two-spirited peoples sometimes did not self-identify, but were designated as such. In a family of five boys, Torres posits, the youngest might be chosen to be two-spirit, and raised accordingly. Selection might be based on a child’s predilection to gender-bend, but it was nonetheless an elder’s selection.

Furthermore, the sexual aspects of some two-spirit traditions, not practiced today, are another source of discomfort for Torres. For instance, in some traditions, a male-to-female two-spirited person would be expected to take a formerly straight male lover. “This man considered it a privilege to be taken sexually or just picked, in general, by a two-spirit person as their partner —  it’s like being chosen by a god,” she explains. Sometimes this partnership was only temporary, its duration determined by the two-spirit partner, “And this man [the straight partner] would go back to being straight again.”

Torres is reluctant to revere such practices, which she finds incredible from a contemporary vantage point. “I can’t see taking on a straight lover even if it’s for a million dollars,” she muses. How could a straight man, she wonders, be expected to take on a gay one?

A gender emphasis – “it’s not about who you’re fucking”

Pruden acknowledges the tension between modern, sexuality-oriented identifications and the two-spirit concept. “It’s a gender theory — it has nothing to do with sexual orientation,” he says. “Some nations have as many as five distinct genders. Each has a role and a responsibility as well as a sphere within the context of the community.” However, because “today, it’s gay-identified Native Americans who are two-spirit identified . . . that component of gender is basically taken out in practice.”

For example, Pruden notes that while some two-spirits in reservation settings are taking up traditional two-spirit roles again, such as ceremonial cooking, healing, and telling sacred stories, they “do couple up with other two-spirited people in a contemporary way,” rather than taking a straight identified partner as was tradition. As Torres mentions, it’s not a change that most two-spirit people today would lament.

However, as Pruden points out, the traditional emphasis on gender, rather than sexuality, expands the discussion from sex to society. “It’s not about who you’re fucking — it has nothing to do with sex.” Unlike sexual orientation, gender “something that is distinctly ours — that we perform within the community,” argues Pruden. Two-spirit people, he says, must grapple with the question of “‘What is our role within the community at large?’ not just ‘Who am I sleeping with?’”

The emphasis upon a socially-situated role is, for many Native Americans, a welcome change from mainstream queer communities, which often focus on personal identity as separate from the political, cultural and spiritual spheres that form the foundation of two-spirit groups.

Due to the myriad modern threats to American Indian communities, such as marginalization, poverty, poor education, alcoholism and other diseases, Ben Geboe says, people who identify as two-spirit “are more concerned about the racial and ethnic issues than they are about gay and lesbian issues.” Issues such as gay marriage, argues Geboe, are petty compared to American Indians’ struggle to survive as an ethnic community. “We’re still fighting for land, we’ve still got these social problems, we have the highest incidence of disease,” he says.  

Thomas agrees that his primary allegiance, as an activist, is to the Native community. Growing up on his Oklahoma reservation, he explains, “this whole structure around you … says that you need to be politically active,” especially in the hostile political climate generated by anti-Native groups such as One Nation, which has advocated against tribal sovereignty.

Wolf agrees that “gay is second to our role as a two-spirit person walking in the world.” In her view, two-spirit identity is informed by the deep spirituality inherent in Native tradition. “A lot of two-spirit people view themselves as called to a kind of spiritual service,” she remarks.  

Wolf feels that this spiritual emphasis, compounded with the problems of “alcoholism and drug addiction on the rez”, lends two-spirit gatherings a different tenor than mainstream queer events. “Our meetings aren’t all about partying,” she says, noting that almost any two-spirit event will include a prayer or speech by an elder.

“There are people of color who are gay, and there are white people who are gay”

The communal concerns of two-spirit people can generate discomfort for them in mainstream queer communities. “The LGBT movement is fighting for equality,” argues Pruden, “but it’s equality in a model that is being basically driven by white privilege.”

Geboe perceives a racial divide in urban gay life: “You can be [white and] gay, live in Minnesota, and come to New York and feel that you’ve arrived in this mecca, and that everything in this world is there to promote your survival as a person.” In contrast, he continues, “You can come to New York as a Native American from South Dakota, and if you’re a person of color, immediately understand that there are two [queer] societies —there are people of color who are gay, and there are white people who are gay.”

Besides their shared political and spiritual concerns, two-spirit people take comfort in not being tokenized in Native settings, the way they frequently are in the larger queer community. Before Wewa and Barcheampe formed, Geboe explains, ”it seemed like we were doing more for the overall gay and lesbian community than we were doing for ourselves,” constrained to perform as ethnic “representatives” symbolizing the diversity of the gay community.

Wolf complains that “in the gay community at large, we’re sort of a novelty, or we don’t exist — because in mainstream society, we don’t exist.” Two-spirit gatherings are one of the few places where Harlan says he doesn’t feel a need to “take count” to determine his comfort level. Normally he says he asks himself, “Is this safe or is this not safe?  How many people of color are here?  How many other gays?” However, he feels, “When I go to these two-spirit gatherings, I never count. I don’t have to count. It’s very affirming.”

Two-spirit people also draw from experiences of poverty on the reservation that, Wolf notes, are typically far removed from the experience of white Americans. Thomas explains that, for rural gay Indians in particular, the cultural connection is essential as they seek new communities in larger cities. “For us it’s very important to connect with people we identify with. Growing up impoverished is something that unites us.”

Thomas reflects, “You can’t just joke around with Caucasian people, saying, ‘Yeah, when I was a little kid, I used to have to haul water, so we could take a bath.’” In his experience, such anecdotes are often met with disbelief or derision. For the approximately 1.2 million American Indians who live on reservations, however, “That’s just a part of our lives!”

Creating two-spirit culture across tribes

At the same time, the intertribal reach of two-spirit organizing presents its own problems. “Some tribes don’t have a tradition of tolerance of lesbian and gay activity,” Geboe remarks. Consequently, there are a number of Native people who view two-spirit traditions “as an outside thing coming in, and not as something that’s always been there and now is more visible.” He discovered this hurdle himself in an “uncomfortable confrontation” at a Native conference, in which “this elder got up and said that everything we [two-spirit organizers] were doing was wrong.” Intertribal respect, however, prevailed, and it was agreed that the tribes’ traditions differed.

Within two-spirit groups, tribal diversity can also be problematic, but, paradoxically, may produce greater solidarity. “When we come together,” Wolf explains, “we have different traditions around how you say the prayers, and how you have rituals and ceremonies. The interesting this is, when we get together and ask [those questions] we find that, you guys may do this little thing a little bit different” but there’s a basic “connectedness.” In a way, she remarks, “we’re creating two-spirit identity all the time.”

At a time when the queer community on the whole is grappling with its priorities and considering new privileges such as marriage, military service, and adoption, two-spirit organizations like Pruden’s offer an alternative model of queer empowerment.

Reflecting on two-spirit and mainstream gay communities, Geboe summarizes the difference: “The gay way,” he says, ”is that you become gay, you live in the gay community and you do things that identify you with the gay community. The two-spirited way is that you’re a Native American first, and that’s your culture, but there’s also this gayness. But it’s integrated with your culture. It’s something you don’t leave to become.”

Author’s note
Tribal names have been chosen in accordance with the preferred terms of those interviewed. For the purposes of this article, the terms ‘American Indian’, ‘Native American’, and ‘Native’ have been used interchangeably to describe persons descended from the original, tribally-organized peoples of North and South America.

In this article, the term ‘queer’ is used to describe all people who either do not identify as straight, do not identify as the same gender as their biological sex at birth, or both.

STORY INDEX >

The Northeast Two-Spirit Society meets on the 2nd Wednesday of each month, from 8 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at New York City’s LGBT Center.

BOOKS >
Purchase these books through Powells.com and a portion of the proceeds benefit InTheFray

Two-Spirit People: Native American Gender Identity, Sexuality, and Spiritualityby Sue-Ellen Jacobs, Wesley Thomas, Sabine Lang
URL: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=0252066456

Changing Ones: Third and Fourth Genders in Native North America
by Will Roscoe
URL: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=0312224796

Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology
Edited by Will Roscoe
URL: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=031203475x

Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture                     by Walter Williams
URL: http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/partner?partner_id=28164&cgi=product&isbn=0807046159

ORGANIZATIONS >

Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirits
URL: http://www.baaits.org
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center
URL:http://www.gaycenter.org

Northwest Two-Spirit Society
URL:http://www.nwtwospiritsociety.org/index.html

“

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Commentary

The gift that keeps on giving

With stores pushing “free” gifts down our throats this holiday season, I can’t help but wonder if they’re really gifts at all. Even if I do enjoy them …


Mass communications scholars assert consumers and advertisers are engaged in a never-ending struggle for attention and money. Consumers combat the relentless assault of ads by constructing defenses to protect themselves from unnecessary or even disturbing information. Advertisers’ livelihoods depend on toppling or circumventing those defenses, and they use all sorts of stealth attacks to accomplish that goal.

I just want to explain what’s really going on in the latest “movie” playing at the Amazon.com Theater.

Yes, Amazon.com, that amazing emporium of stuff — books, compact discs, software, watches, musical instruments, and whatever else you think you want — now has a “theater.” You don’t have to pay a cent to watch. Just let your defenses down for the five minutes it takes to see the short feature, which the generous owners of Amazon.com call a “free gift” to its customers.

I beg to disagree. I’ve never paid to receive a gift in my life, so I’m immediately suspicious when a store offers me a “free” gift. Usually that complimentary present is an enticement, a way to get me into the shop so I’ll buy something. So let’s be honest. This film isn’t a gift — it’s not even a film. It’s a commercial starring products that you can purchase at Amazon.com.

Don’t know what the products are? You can wait for the credits; they are listed with hyperlinks to another Amazon page where you can buy them. Can’t wait for even five minutes? Click the credits button. They will roll. You don’t have to be told outright to figure out what’s for sale.  

Watch “Agent Orange,” the second of five movies. Notice how the camera lingers on the orange girl’s watch. See how the cinematographer just happens to build the shot around male actor’s orange tennis shoes.

Notice I didn’t say leading man. There is no reason to wait until the end of the movie to buy the Orange Boy’s shades, or the Orange Girl’s boots. Click another button and you can link to the product on the Amazon.com site.

In these movies, the products are the stars and the actors are the props. The fact that a few live humans get top billing doesn’t prove otherwise; it’s just a ploy to get past one of those filters that we weary consumers use to separate wheat from chaff. Or commercials we want to watch from ones we don’t.

So why am I checking the schedule to see when the next movie will show? Because they are great little flicks.

The first one, “Portrait,” was a sophisticated, witty adaptation of the “Picture of Dorian Gray.” I’d give it two thumbs up. I couldn’t really get into the avant-garde camera angles in “Agent Orange,” so the piece gets one thumb up and one down. But that’s coming from a woman who still has oatmeal colored carpet in her living room. Maybe the flick was too bright for my taste.

Still, I stayed and watched until the end, and that is all the advertisers want me to do. Even though I haven’t bought anything, there are fewer and fewer shopping days until Christmas. I was intrigued enough by the movies to spend a couple of hours writing about them, and a lot longer thinking about them.

So who won this battle?  Mass communications scholars also predict that advertisers will become so adept at sneaking through consumers’ barricades, anything can become a potential commercial.

I think the researchers haven’t gone far enough. The future is here; everything already is a potential commercial. Even columns like this.

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Interviews

Louisa Achille on The Naked Feminist

A conversation with Louisa Achille, the director of The Naked Feminist.


What inspired you to make The Naked Feminist?

I became inspired to make The Naked Feminist after reading a magazine article on the famous porn star, Nina Hartley, declaring her feminist sensibilities and strengths as a sex entertainer and educator — a career spanning over 17 years. I wanted to know if Nina was a rare exception in this male dominated industry.

Feminism‚ is a somewhat contentious term that different people define in different ways. From your film, I get the sense that you define it in terms of being empowered and in control of oneself. Would you say that’s a pretty accurate characterization of your definition?

I think feminism for many women means different things, but for me it is essentially about choice and giving women a voice. I think once a woman has her voice and can make choices for herself, then empowerment, self-identity, and courage will follow.

Why did you choose the particular actresses you used in your film? They seem like a fairly close-knit group, which I found very interesting. It made the pornography film  industry seem much smaller than I imagined.

It was important for me to interview women who had a number of years experience in the industry so I could gauge the progress (or lack of progress) women had made in the adult entertainment industry.

Once I met Jane Hamilton and read about CLUB 90, I became completely inspired by this group of renegade female sex performers. They had created the first porn star support group for women. They have not only created a strong sisterhood amongst themselves, but [they] also have become incredible mentors and role models to other women in the industry. I consider these women to be the first feminists in the industry, and of course their voices are a crucial element in a film depicting feminist sensibilities within the world of adult entertainment. [Like Jane Hamilton,] Nina Hartley, Sharon Mitchell and Christi Lake … [have] all made incredible strides within the industry – Nina as a sex radical, performer, educator and mentor, Sharon co-founding the first medical clinic devoted to the health and emotional needs of people in the industry, and Christi through her political activism and entrepreneurial insight.

All industries are much smaller and [more] tightly knit than they seem, and this is fairly evident once you start working within mainstream Hollywood and similarly with the adult entertainment industry — especially within the same country. However, I think it is even more so with the adult entertainment industry as the people within that industry have been under attack from legislators, the government, and the public far more than any other industry and thus have banded together to fight for freedom of speech and other essential rights such as freedom of expression.
  
The adult entertainment industry is also an industry where the performers, especially the women, are breaking one of the biggest taboo a woman can break — that is having sex on camera for money … Since only a small percentage of women enter into this occupation, they are going to get to know each other and some will form bonds.

There is a peculiar absence of men in your film — aside from Seymour Butts — even though men are an integral component of the porn industry as both producers and consumers. The absence of men in The Naked Feminist seems to be a smart stylistic move to depict women as the agents of the porn industry and their stories. Did you consider interviewing other men besides Seymour, and if so, why are they not included in the edited version of the film? If not, why? And what is so special about Seymour that caused him to make the cut?

I interviewed a number of men — journalists, directors, writers, and performers in the adult entertainment industry, and they were included in every cut except for my final cut … I made this film to give women in the industry a voice, and I didn’t want to lose sight of that. Thus, if a woman spoke about a similar experience or point of view as a man [I interviewed], I chose to keep in the woman’s voice. This film is about [the women in the pornography industry] and their experiences, not the men’s. Even though I do consider [the men’s] viewpoints and experiences to also be incredibly valid, they essentially didn’t belong in this film.

Seymour Butts has one big specialty in my opinion. No, only joking. The reason I was so interested in keeping Seymour in the film was because of his huge female fan base. Even though his main target audience is men, he has all these women that love him and his porn films. When you go to the big adult entertainment conventions it is always astounding to see the number of women — of all ages and nationalities — waiting to get autographs from him. It was nice to illustrate this role reversal and disprove the right wing feminist mantra that no women like pornography.

I noticed that The Naked Feminist doesn’t explicitly address homosexuality and lesbian erotica. However, from what I have read, queer porn is particularly important for women and men who are questioning their sexuality or who are insecure about being involved with members of the same sex. Do you think there is any particular reason why your film ended up having a heterosexual slant?

I don’t think The Naked Feminist explicitly addresses heterosexual erotica either, but you are right, that it is the main genre of pornography that is delved into. That is mainly because heterosexual pornography is the most popular and most historic type of pornography out there. But this was not at all intentional. I did not look at sexual orientation when I made this film.  I was more interested in the female sexual pioneers and entrepreneurs who had made an impact on the industry and made working conditions for women better or who were making strides in today’s mainstream porn world. There are so many sub-genres in pornography and I am sure that many women and men are empowered by the different types. However, that discussion is, I believe, for another film. However, I would like to add that many of the women interviewed are gay, bisexual, polysexual and heterosexual. A wonderful mix really.

Your documentary argues that some pornography is in fact misogynistic and that such films are not the type of porn that the women you interviewed condone. How can one differentiate between misogynistic and non-misogynistic porn? The presence of violence? Consent (or the lack thereof)? Women both in front of and behind the camera? Or just the gut reaction of women involved in the film?

Subjectivity, taste, and consent will always creep into discussions regarding pornography and especially pornography and misogyny. I don’t think there is one exact definition of misogynist porn, and I don’t think there is a sub-genre [that] supports it. However, when I was making this film, I did encounter a disturbing trend in the industry to push the boundaries of sexual violence towards women as far as possible. I think this is mainly a knee-jerk shock tactic to gain notoriety in the business, and it might possibly exist as a backlash against the positive strides that women have made in the industry.  I don’t believe that the companies making this stuff represent the industry as a whole. However, the fact that this type of material (e.g. women being beaten to a pulp whilst being gang raped, made to vomit whilst giving oral [sex] and [being] punched around the head) is being produced saddens me, and in my opinion, it is misogynist as it is illustrating a hatred towards women.

Do you sense some urgency to disrupt the taboo associated with pornography in general, or is your goal merely to enable the women you interviewed to speak their stories and perspectives? What is it that you seek to contribute to the ongoing dialogue regarding sex and sexuality in Western culture (if anything)?

I made The Naked Feminist to give the women in pornography a voice. To me, the film is less about breaking down the taboo associated with pornography and more about breaking down the taboo associated with women who chose to be sexual educators and entertainers. When a man chooses to work in pornography, he is rarely viewed as being exploited or objectified. In reality the money shot and the penis are the most objectified aspects of the genre.  I really think it is time to get rid of this antiquated double standard.

What, if anything, do you hope to contribute to the independent film industry with The Naked Feminist? Is there anything you hope other filmmakers (adult entertainment or otherwise) will take from seeing your film?  Is there anything you hope viewers will take from seeing it?

I would like to contribute tolerance and acceptance to the [feminist] movement. It would be nice if some of the dominant women’s groups would accept these women’s choices, help them to change the system, and make it safer for women instead of denying them their voice and validity.

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Commentary

Sufis of the Dargahs

A pilgrimage on the path to divine love and knowledge.


Click here to enter the visual essay.

“Nehi, nehi sahib…nehi” murmurs the elderly man as I step into the marbled area that houses the saint’s shrine. I stop in my tracks, and he pats his head repeatedly while pointing at mine. I belatedly realize that I should have worn some sort of head cover in deference to Islamic tradition. I search my pockets for a handkerchief to use instead, but the man removes his white cotton skullcap and hands it to me with a smile.

I am at the dargah of Hizrat Nizzamuddin Auliya, a shrine of the revered Sufi saint. It is situated in Basti, reputedly one of the oldest continuously inhabited areas in Delhi. To reach it, I walked along labyrinthine medieval alleys amongst colonies of maimed beggars, stopped to admire the dexterous handiwork of a professional ear-cleaner administering his craft to a client, ambled past countless butcher shops with gory displays of goat carcasses, dingy kebab eateries, and ignored the well-rehearsed entreaties of stall keepers selling skullcaps, rosaries and religious posters of Mecca and of Islamic calligraphy.

Sufism is generally known as “Islamic Mysticism,” in which its adherents seek to find divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God. The position of mainstream Islam towards Sufism range from dismissing it as an inoffensive faction to considering it as a dangerous heretic movement because of its open embrace of people from all religions. Nizamuddin Auliya was a 14th century Muslim mystic who withdrew from the world and whose message of prayer, love, and the unity of all matters was admired and faithfully followed by Sufis in the Asian subcontinent and beyond.

Leaving my shoes at one of the stalls, I entered the outer periphery of the dargah, joining a crowd of pilgrims carrying large trays of rose petals destined to be strewn on the actual catafalque of the sainted man. Some of the pilgrims were whispering verses from the Quran, and were careful not to jostle each other as they made their way towards the shrine. People lined both sides of the long narrow alleyway leading to the heart of the shrine; some were asleep, others standing and a few sat, chatting with abandon.

A small woman, with sad eyes, sits quietly with her back to the whitewashed walls of the narrow entranceway. I engage her in conversation by smiling a lot and nodding at her responses. A man nearby serves as an impromptu translator, telling me that her name is Halima, that she is a penniless widow and that she is here for the free dhal and bread doled out daily by the shrine’s organization to the needy. In fact, all of the people around us are waiting for their only good meal of the day. A fierce-looking gray-bearded man glowers at me, probably resenting my intrusion. But it is Halima who captures my imagination and interest.

Further along on a marble platform, a lone woman is deep in prayer and genuflects towards Mecca. Women are not allowed within the inner sanctorum of the shrine, but many are busily tying colored strings and ribbons to the white marble trellis carved by early artisans, which surrounds the saint’s tomb. It is the traditional way for supplicants to request favors from the saint. I am told that some of the women are expectant, and praying for a male child.

Wearing my borrowed skullcap, I stand deferentially before the tomb of Hazarat Auliya. Contrary to more traditional teachings of mainstream Islam, pilgrims prostrate themselves on the floor, murmuring prayers and supplications. Petals of red roses are strewn over the green silk shroud covering the marble tomb. I circumambulate the tomb’s perimeter, and make eye contact with a boy of perhaps no more than six. Ali has an earnest expression, and seems very serious. He is clearly dressed in his best clothes; a burgundy blazer and a spotless white skullcap like mine. I try to speak with him, but he just stands there transfixed by the sight of my cameras. His father hovers nearby, demonstrably proud of his son. Everyone in this area appears to radiate an inner peace, calm and a tangible tolerance for others.

It does not last for long. As I turn to leave the tomb’s site, a khaddim advances towards me with an open notebook. The shrine’s often self-appointed guardians are aggressive in their soliciting donations from pilgrims and visitors, and more often than not, donations end up in the wrong hands. He gruffly asks me for a donation of no less than 5,000 rupees, and using a technique that must have intimidated tourists before, proffers the notebook to show me hastily scribbled entries of donated amounts.

I ignore the theatrics, and greet him with the traditional Muslim “Al-salaam aleikum.” The book quickly disappears from view as he asks me for confirmation that I am a Muslim. His eyes are already darting left and right in search for another mark, and when he gets the confirmation, he slinks out of sight, muttering excuses and apologies. In Islam, charity is largely voluntary.

The skullcap weighs heavily in my hand as I look for its owner. All I know is that he has a gentle smile and a small white beard. I walk up and down the main entranceway, in the various other subordinate shrines and passages, and look among the pillars. But to no avail, the man has vanished among the ancient alleys of the neighborhood, having gifted his knitted skullcap to a stranger. “

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personal stories. global issues.