By Leehee Rothschild
A recent Israeli celebrity’s admission that he has had sexual experiences with men but does not consider himself homosexual has drawn ridicule from the LGBT community, exposing its own biases and intolerance.
LGBT flag (ivovisualista/CC BY NC SA 2.0)
My Facebook feed recently filled up with posts by LGBT friends mocking the Israeli singer and songwriter Ze’ev Nehama, who shared with a Yedioth Ahronoth interviewer (Hebrew) his sexual experiences with other men. In the interview, Nehama said that while he did have sexual encounters with men, he does not define himself as a homosexual, since these encounters were merely sexual, and not emotional. This confession became a source of degradation in the LGBT community.
This is not the first time I have encountered this sort of cynicism and lack of acceptance. I won’t quote the comments, since I do not wish to name and shame, but rather to point out a phenomenon and protest it. For the sake of proper disclosure, I shall say that I did not read the entire article, but only bits scanned and posted on Facebook, along with the accompanying comments. I believe, though, that these comments are representative enough.
The mocking comments define Nehama as a closeted homosexual, incapable of dealing with his sexual desires and orientation. These comments reflect a very deep and basic lack of acceptance and respect for experiences that do not fit into the world as experienced by the commentators. Ze’ev Nehama chose not to identify as a homosexual, while sharing his encounters with men. He was not hiding in any closet, nor was he ashamed of his experiences. His choice as he presents it derives from viewing homosexuality as an emotional and not only sexual experience, an understanding and conception that we as a community have been struggling for years to build.
There are many orientations that have neither name nor definition, at least not a publically acknowledged one, on the continuum of sexual orientation. The discourse on those is limited by the heterosexual – and apparently, also by the LGBT – community. There are people who find sexual partners in one gender and emotional partners in the other. There are those who experiment and ultimately decide it’s not their thing. There are some who enjoy sexual encounters with members of the same sex, but only those involving multiple partners. And more.
It is possible that Nehama does not develop feelings for men because due to internalization of the social misconception of men as sexual beings and women as emotional ones. It is possible that he is in denial of his feelings, since he does not want to pay the price for LGBT identification. We are not inside his head. But there is no justification whatsoever for the dismissal of his authentic life experience as he describes it, especially, from a community that striving for acceptance and understanding.
This lack of acceptance is destructive to the community itself. It can erode the identification, partial as it is, that a man like Nehama might feel with the community, which mocked and rejected him. It might also lead the next celebrity planning to share non-heterosexual experiences reconsider, in order to avoid twofold oppression, both from the heterosexual and LGBT worlds. I believe that we should aim to build an open and accepting community that allows people to investigate and experiment with their preferences and orientations.
Additionally, according to his own account, Nehama is clearly also attracted to women, with whom he builds long and committed relationships, a fact all those angry commentators seem to ignore. They also disregard the fact that the dictionary happens to have a definition for people attracted to both men and women – bisexual. Not only do they exclude the bisexual option, but in defining Nehama as a homosexual, they also reject his numerous and meaningful sexual encounters with women. They claim that once you have sexually experimented with men, the sex you have had with women is merely a cover story for your true homosexual identity. This statement is not only biphobic but also chauvinist, as it minimizes and degrades the significances of encounters with women.
Just as the word bisexual is missing from the LGBT lexicon, it is also missing from the heteronormative consciousness. It is possible that if the bisexual option was more commonly invoked, Nehama would have chosen to identify as such. And maybe not. But erasure of the bisexual experience within the LGBT community must end. I must stress, however, that just as I object to the classification of Ze’ev Nehama as a homosexual, I am neither trying to declare him bisexual, nor to place him on any sort of bisexual continuum. It is not for me to determine a person’s sexual orientation.
Another anecdote Nehama shared that was ridiculed, was an incident, in which he was approached by a girl while sitting in a café. She asked whether he believed in passion, and as he answered yes, she made her way to the restroom. Instead of following her and having sex with her, as the restaurant’s owner encouraged him to do, he panicked and ran off. Here too, a person’s authentic experience is mocked and erased. Mockery that stems from the same social misconception, which views men as nothing but sexual beings, always craving and hunting sexual partners and experiences. This conception judges every man who chooses to avoid sex in a situation in which it is accessible to him, viewing him as a masculine failure, impotent.
The consent, and even more so, the will of men, is questionable under such misconception, as it requires them to constantly prove their sexuality and masculinity. Men do not have to be sexually available at any given moment. Men do not always have to want sex. Men may express insecurity regarding their sexuality. And men are allowed to change their minds and leave, even in the midst of flirtation, even when some level of consent has already been expressed.
The LGBT community strives to change society and make it more accepting for people with a varying range of sexual orientations and preferences. We struggle so that our experiences will not be erased, so that we will not be told to whom we must be attracted, so that we will not be told that it is just a phase, so that our definition of ourselves and our preferences will be accepted. At the same time, in its rush to claim every celebrity who expresses the slightest attraction to his own sex or gender, members of the LGBT community do exactly what they protest against.
While I usually dislike the phrase “Social change begins within each of us,” I find it quite adequate. In this context. I would like to ask everyone reading this text to examine themselves and their community, and think once more how accepting they are of a wide range of sexual orientations – including those that cannot be neatly packaged in box.
Leehee Rothschild has been active in the Palestinian struggle for over a decade. She currently works with Anarchists Against the Wall and Boycott From Within. She writes about activism and political struggle on her blog, Radically Blonde and other publications.
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Philos
Very depressing. Even the LGBT community in Israel is behind the curve, socially primitive and backwards. You just can’t win in this country. The only place in the world where I encountered pot smoking people with long dreadlocks, vegans, and whatever, who were also simultaneously racist xenophobes. Even the hippies in Israel hate.
Kolumn9
Aren’t you on your way out? You know what? Here is some actually potentially useful advice. Give Portland, OR or Eugene,OR a try. I think you would love it there. Nicest places on earth for liberals to live and probably paradise for somebody used to yellow, dry and hot climates.
Mitchell Cohen
Kolumn, I think I remember Philos saying he despises Americans. IMO, he should head towards Germany where they are banning circumcision and Berlin is one of the most “liberal” cities in the world. The only problem is there might be too many Israelis there for him.
Mesho
“The only place in the world where I encountered pot smoking people with long dreadlocks, vegans, and whatever, who were also simultaneously racist xenophobes. Even the hippies in Israel hate.”
I have found this to be true in my visits into Israel and could not agree with you more Philos.
PAUL
oh..pleasssseee grow up, spare us the poppycock psycobabble politically correct LGBT guff…
“..Nehama said that while he did have sexual encounters with men, he does not define himself as a homosexual, since these encounters were merely sexual, and not emotional…”
Like every gay mans raw desire to have sex with a man is either sexual or emotional…?? What a weird binary interpretation of sex and emotion…
richard
Leila, are you really so naive, or simply an Israeli plant trying to make Arabs look stupid. You know what was the one thing that the asshole rabbis of “the zionist entity” and the asshole imams of East Jerusalem were able to agree on, and put aside there enmity over? That Gaga are gross and evil.
Erik Skamser
Good article. By the way what does the B in LGBT stand for?
Bluegrass Picker of Afula
“B” stands for “Bisexual”. But you see, Leehee isn’t actually a true top-level hipster. True top-level hipsters now use the abbreviation LGBTQ (adding “Queer”) If a Queer calls herself a Queer, that’s hip. But if I call a Queer a Queer, that’s hate speech. Now, when she and I
do the same thing, but get treated differently – no, that’s NOT “racism”!!!
Elana
Thank you for writing this! The comments here are, in large part, pretty gross. But that’s why it’s all the more important to speak up in articles like this. I hope it doesn’t dishearten you. Honest critical reflection on oneself and one’s allies is just as important as on one’s opposition… keep it up.
Diane D'Angelo
The bullying of bisexuals by lesbians and gay men is the gay version of black people’s disdain for natural hair or light-skinned people. It comes from a place of deep insecurity and yes, internalized homophobia, because if you’re threatened by the notion of same-sex activities/relations being a matter of choice rather than genetics, you’re not comfortable in your own skin.
Gay emancipation
Oh, for me, it’s a choice.
Why should free and self-determined individuals not chose their way of life rather than doing what society forces them to do?
It’s much cooler, sexier, more fun and so on to be gay.
Do you have anything against my choice?
Tom
Now, that’s in steep contrast to those so-called “bisexuals” who can’t get rid of societal brainwashing and all the sexist images the media are spreading like never before.
I tell them: Don’t bother me with your hetero crap – neither 50% nor 20%. I want ZERO % of that.
Geoff Heaviside
Bi Phobia and Trans Phobia is alive and well in many GLBTI Communities.
Gays refusing to take part in a solidarity march if the Trans people are allowed etc
I spent a long time considering the Bi position when my marriage was stressed.
I am comfortable to tick the Gay box now because I have very little interest in an active sex life and I draw most of my emotional satisfaction from men. I think there is a reason we use the term GLBTI because in the minority there are other minorities whose position deserves respect and understading.
Gay emancipation
What exactly do I as gay man with a minimum of self-esteem have in common with people who behave exactly the way the heteronormative and -sexist society indoctrinates them to?
Leila
We are often asked why we gays oppose normalization with the zionist entity when gay life is supposedly better in tel aviv than in Gaza. Today, Hamas may be homophobic but once we demonstrate our prinicipled opposition to the zionist entity and show that we have more in common with Hamas and Hezbollah, they will accept us with tolerance. This will eventually lead to tolerance of gays from Morocco to Indonesia
Bluegrass Picker of Afula
>>> I am comfortable to tick the Gay box now because I have very little interest in an active sex life
first those damn zionist dogs stole our indigenous Arab cuisine.
Then along you come, stealing our Asexualist thunder. You damn Gay dogs.
PS: Heaviside…. any relation to Oliver?
toyotabedzrock
You do not get to choose weather you are gay or not. And your article is insulting for insinuating that he can.