The Presentation of The Research Integrating LGBT – Topics in The Šmarje pri Jelšah Elementary School Classrooms.

 In my graduation thesis titled Integrating LGBT – topics in the Šmarje pri Jelšah elementary school classrooms, a research about the inclusion of LGBT themes in schools. At the beginning, I wanted to do my research at a smaller school because I was interested in the answers of teachers who work in a small school in the countryside. I encountered a problem, since the smaller schools did not respond at my request to conduct a survey. Of the eight requests sent to primary schools in rural areas, only two answered. I assume that schools which did not respond avoided the research because of the sensitive topic. In the two schools that were willing to participate I didn't get the minimum number of required teachers to do my research. Later, I contacted one of the pedagogues at the Primary School Šmarje pri Jelšah, which communicated with the schools teachers who were willing to participate. However, since many of the selected teachers did not respond to the e-mails, I, with the permission of the pedagogue, sent a request to all the teachers at the school. The responsiveness was very poor, as from sixty-five sent emails, I received only eight replies. The last two interviews I arranged personally during interviews with the other teachers.

The respondants consist of teachers of the Primary School Šmarje pri Jelšah, who were regularly employed in the school year 2016/2017. I interviewed 10 teachers, of which were 8 female and 2 male. The average age of the teachers was between 30 and 55 years. The interviews were held from September 15, 2016 to January 10, 2017. The aim of the research was to determine whether teachers talk about homosexuality with children in school, acquaintance them with LGBT topics, such as familiarity with LGBT acronyms, rainbow family, prejudices and stereotypes towards LGBT people, peer physical and verbal violence of LGBT pupils, teachers education on LGBT topics and the ability to talk about them.

Based on their answers, I got the following results:

Knowledge of teachers about the abbreviation »LGBT«
The answers indicate that the teachers are quite unfamiliar with LGBT topics. Mostly they do not know the terms or they have not even heard of them. The poor knowledge of LGBT topics is not a good starting point for talking to children because the children expect answers. By not knowing and not talking about LGBT the children can receive a message that this is something hidden and bad.

The relationship of teachers to the LGBT and the importance of conversations
Although teachers believe that it is important to talk about LGBT themes, they prefer to avoid conversation because of their own beliefs or because of their own inadequacy for such a conversation. Here I think that the support of the curriculum would be welcome. If LGBT topics were included in the curriculum, teachers could prepare properly and make it easier for them to talk about it with children.

Talking to children about LGBT topics
Children are very interested in the opinions of the teachers. Some teachers do not share their opinion regarding LGBT topics with children. Children are usually interested if they support same-sex families, and they already create an opinion about a teacher if (s)he supports them or not. One of the teachers, however talks about children's books with LGBT contents. The teacher believes that children are very open to LGBT topics and that resistance comes usually from parents. Teachers on general also say that younger generations are more open-minded, as they do not see the topic through religion. They believe that younger generations will break up stereotypes in society. One teacher says she likes to rely on examples and personal experience. She notices that some children are very reserved during conversations and often judge LGBT people. She thinks their prejudices come from their families, however teachers teach objectivity and honesty at school.

Avoiding talking about LGBT topics
Two of the teachers replied that they sometimes avoid talking about LGBT topics, either because of their own incompetence regarding LGBT or they tell the children that they have already talked enough about this and change the topic of the conversation. Other teachers do not avoid conversation and feel that there should be more talk about it. Teachers believe that children are not talking about this at home. One of the teachers says that she advocates professional work, which means she presents the subject objectively and helps the children if they have any questions. One of the teachers says that older children find it harder to deal with differences because they want to prove themselves before the others. They feel the pressure of their peers and they stick to the majority. He also believes that LGBT topics are harder to explain to older children. He also says that those who are more pious are more opposed to homosexuality and more homophobia appears among them.

Qualified for conversation
Half of the teachers questioned their beliefs that they are trained enough to talk to children about LGBT topics. One of the teachers said she would welcome to have some didactic knowledge in this field in order to make it easier to find a way to talk to children. One of the teachers said that he would turn to help of a professional colleague regarding the LGBT topics. About half of the teachers said that they were trained enough to talk to children about it. Less than half of teachers think they are sufficiently informed about it, but that also depends on what children are asking

The ability of other teachers to talk
It is a worrying answer that less than half of teachers think that other teachers are trained enough in the LGBT area. So, not only that half of the teachers question their qualifications, more than half believe that others are not trained enough.

Use of homophobic germplasm
The fact that children use homophobic germplots and do not know what they mean shows that teachers and parents do not talk enough with the children about it. Children hear words at home, in movies, or elsewhere. Because they see that they are used as negative expressions, they begin to use them on to the others. When used, others may be (unconsciously) affected.

Suitable age of the children for conversation
Teachers have very different opinions about when is the appropriate age of children to talk about LGBT topics with them. Some think that children understand everything if we explain the topic in an appropriate way.

Teaching children about LGBT
Teachers have different ideas about how to include LGBT topics into school work. If they were included in the curriculum, this would be a support for them. The answers show that teachers need more support in their work regarding LGBT topics (Lesjak, 2017: 23 - 39).

On the basis of theory and my own research, I find or assume that the society and the school system are still very heteronormative, and that most teachers are not ready to introduce LGBT topics into their lessons which is due to ignorance regarding LGBT topics in society. This a consequence of non-support of the curriculum and institutions that determine the course of school work. I believe that the introduction of LGBT topics into the school system would contribute to the reduction of homophobia, prejudice and, consequently, peerless violence based on same-sex orientation. If we want to reduce peer violence based on sexual orientation, we need to start introducing these themes, educating teachers, parents and children. This will gradually eliminate prejudices and thus contribute to a better quality of life for LGBT pupils and LGBT people on general.

Source:
LESJAK, ANJA (2017): Vključevanje LGBT- teme pri pouku v osnovni šoli Šmarje pri Jelšah. Diplomsko delo. Fakulteta za socialno delo: 23-39.​

Five Lessons From Clexacon 2019

Clexacon is a unique event: a fan convention in which fans get to encounter and hear from actresses in queer roles, a meet-up for thousands of queer women, a space to discuss queer female and transgender representation on screen and real life social issues, and an opportunity for content creators to network and develop their projects. Although Clexacon focuses almost exclusively on American (and to a lesser extent Canadian) representation—an unfortunate Anglo bias reflecting the disparity in representation globally—there is no other event in the world like it, and it is an event that the queer community desperately needs, both for our own sakes and to show the global entertainment industry the size and potential of LGBT viewers. Put another way, the event is intended directly to celebrate the queer community, but indirectly to influence heterosexual producers and executives to provide more queer content.

As would one expect from a convention dedicated to queer representation on the big and small screen, many of the discussions at Clexacon involve interesting and thought-provoking ideas about what is needed for more representation. Here are five big take-aways from Clexacon this year:

1. We have to continue to create our own queer content and not rely on the entertainment industry to give it to us because the entertainment industry remains largely closed to minority stories and characters.​
Per former “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” actress Amber Benson, Hollywood is still actively rejecting and resisting minority stories (whether race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.). In her experience pitching and writing content for channels such as Hallmark and Lifetime, she has seen Hollywood either operate on an implicit quota system, in which minorities are allotted only a tiny amount of screen time, or outright excluded. LL Passion notes this is likely to be even more true of the entertainment industries of other countries, where there are additional social and religious prohibitions on depictions of homosexuality. “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” and “The Walking Dead” actress Briana Venskus suggested that one reason Hollywood continues to ignore minority stories is that it doesn’t view the queer community as a financially lucrative market. Why develop content for a demographic base that will not return a profit?

Although Benson expressed frustration that the pace of change toward more representation in Hollywood has been glacial, Clexacon’s panelists almost universally agreed that there has been tangible, significant improvement in minority representation in the last few years. Although there may not be as many characters and storylines as the queer community would like, there has been a great change in Hollywood in the last decade. This likely has been in part driven by the inclusion of more women and minorities in the writer’s room and in executive positions. Per “Wynonna Earp” showrunner Emily Andras, in her experience, networks are beginning to see diverse stories as a way to tell new and untold stories. Despite greater inclusivity on American TV, to achieve the amount of content that the queer community wants both on TV and in movies, we have to create it ourselves and not wait for Hollywood to slowly catch up. Moreover, Hollywood will never produce as much as we want, so we must supplement it ourselves. This need for internally-produced content is even more true outside the US and England, where queer content is almost nonexistent. If we want it, no one will produce it but us.

2. The queer community needs to be more financially supportive of queer content.
Many of the panelists brought up the same point: it takes money to make queer content, so if viewers want that content, they have to pay for it. Although it’s fair to demand that major networks, whose content is free, include queer content, in the absence of that content, we have to monetize the content producers who do include it. In their panel on “Vida,” actors Ser Anzoategui and Mishal Prada noted that the best thing fans could do to support their show is subscribe to Starz, the premium network on which “Vida” airs. Even subscribing to a single month (at the cost of $8) contributes to the viewer count and demonstrates to the network the presence of a (paying) viewership for the show. Although “Vida” has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is critically acclaimed, it is not guaranteed a third season. Starz will only renew a profitable show, so queer viewers have to help make it profitable.

Producer and actress Crystal Chappell related during her panel that season six of her webseries “Venice: The Series,” which was funded by an indiegogo fundraising campaign, cost approximately $185,000, and that she personally paid $20,000 out of pocket to fill the gap between the fundraised amount and the total production cost. Similarly, tello Films used its presence at Clexacon to publicize its indiegogo campaign to finance a Hallmark-style holiday queer romantic comedy movie. Prior to the convention, its fundraising goal was only halfway met, with only days remaining until the campaign expired. For every fundraising success story, there are tens of other stories of failure. Even small amounts, when given by a large number of individuals, can go a long way toward the creation of more queer content.

3. Queer fans have a deeply personal stake in representation, unlike straight fans who are not minorities. Their emotional connection to queer characters and representation fosters a sense of found family and community that is less pronounced in straight fandoms, and creates an inclusive environment that rewards actresses in queer roles on an emotional and professional level.
For some queer viewers, a LGBT character on screen might be the first other queer person they’ve ever seen, particularly if they live in socially repressive areas. For others, a queer character’s story arc speaks to their own life experiences and struggles in a way that straight characters’ never will. The queer experience is often isolating and emotionally fraught, but its representation on screen is reassuring, normalizing, and uplifting. As many panelists, from actresses to writers, noted, queer content has the ability to literally save lives, as individuals who were otherwise contemplating suicide find hope for the future.

Fandoms in general—both queer and straight—are characterized by their sense of community. Viewership, to fandoms, is a shared experience that begets conversation and friendship. Queer viewers, however, have the additional layer of a shared life experience, which tends to bind them emotionally on a deeper level and create a “found family.” Connecting with other members of a queer fandom often means finding new friends who have faced similar instances of rejection, prejudice, and repression, leading to emotionally supportive relationships. The “Earpers” (fans of Syfy’s “Wynonna Earp”), for example, are renowned for their boisterous engagement with the show’s cast and crew, but also for their high degree of community and supportiveness.

This difference between how straight and queer fans engage with storylines and characters is tangible. Per “Legends of Tomorrow” actress Jes Macallan, queer fans are much more likely to share personal stories with her about how her character changed their lives than straight fans. The interaction she has with queer fans is therefore more interpersonal: an exchange of stories and a sharing of experiences that leaves both parties emotionally affected. Benson, too, reflected on how the queer community had become her found family, to which she feels very emotionally connected.

4. Queer viewers need to mobilize, en masse, to support ALL forms of representation, not just femme, white, queer characters played by straight actresses.
Per Anzoategui, the queer community needs to marshal its support for queer content the way some communities mobilize for a voting campaign: plan, organize, coordinate, and carry out fan campaigns. Because the queer viewer demographic has traditionally been ignored, the queer community must act en masse in order to have its voice heard. Anything less risks further marginalization. More than that, the queer community needs to demand more diversity in queer representation. Whereas traditional queer representation on TV has focused on femme white women, the queer community must demand representation in the form of more queer people of color, masculine-of-center characters, disabled characters, transgender characters, etc. We are not a monolithic community, and our representation shouldn’t be one-dimensional either. This requires that individuals support representation everyone, including people who may be different from themselves. In short, we must be a rising tide that raises all boats, not just some of them.

Additionally, we need to do better at supporting queer actors. Venskus rightly pointed out that the queer actors panel was very under-attended compared to panels featuring straight actresses in queer roles. The community has generally lagged in its support of queer actors, a trend that needs to change. It is unfair to support queer fictional characters, but not queer people in real life.

5. Self-care is important for everyone.
Anzoategui works with a therapist to handle the stress of filming emotionally taxing scenes. Macallan takes planned time away from social media to recharge and re-focus on the important things in her life. “Legends of Tomorrow” actress Caity Lotz knits to keep off social media. In multiple panels, panelists discussed the need for individuals to find ways to take care of themselves mentally and not be consumed by either the addictive pull of social media or the toxicity present in society. As the world becomes faster and the feedback from social media creates instantaneous effects, both positive and negative, it’s important to maintain mental equilibrium, in whatever way works. This is especially true for people who are already feeling stressed by other factors in their lives. From yoga to meditation, reading to dancing, we must all find the things in life that bring us joy and serenity and create a designated time and space in our lives to do those things.

Are We, As Democratic Society, Truly Ready For Equality And Freedom?

​Mary Shanley, in her article “Just Marriage – On the Public Importance of Private Union,” (2004) talks about private, intimate relationships and the public sphere as viewed through the law on martial union. Analyzing laws at that time, she exposed problems regarding the isolation and unequal treatment of women, gays, and the poor, and she contemplated modern alternatives that would foster principles of equality and liberty more consistent with democratic society, based on equality, individualism, reciprocity and the liberty of citizens.
I agree with her that the reformation of “martial union” has been necessary, since the changed definition of martial union would benefit more people and their lifestyles. However, I argue that this change would not fully satisfy demands for legal equality and freedom if it does not include modern changes in intimate areas (which law must satisfy). These changes would show more freedom and equality in intimate relationships and more flexibility in recognizing relationships (open relationships, homo-bisexual relationships, etc.). For example, Shanley, in contrast to Marta Nussbaum, only briefly mentions emotions – love and compassion – which are very important for modeling and activating a just democratic society (and at the same time forming and contributing to institutions and laws). Nussbaum claims that there is a two-way street between institutions and laws on one hand, and beliefs, values and personal judgments on the other. Since judgments are represented in laws and institutions and vice versa, institutions and laws stimulate certain emotions, values, beliefs and judgments in citizens.
1) Shanley opens her research on the formerly unjust marriage laws in the USA, which were based on a conservative notion of marriage. Conservatives believe that marriage is union of one man and one woman and it should be a union for life. The basis for the marital relationship is reproduction, as children are society’s future. In this union, men and women have specific roles: man is the provider, and his wife is a “homemaker.” This union is the family’s foundation and enables a “healthy” foundation for society because it prevents “degeneration” and other “weaknesses” such as crime and poverty, and it raises overall economic welfare. The basis of marriage is therefore “natural,” because it is based on historical tradition and the Bible.
The above mentioned notion of marriage law is problematic, however, because it is unfair to citizens and unions that do not meet specific conditions (homosexuals, the poor, polygamists and alike as Shanley mentions). Equality in front of law, however, is a requirement for the lawmaker, who defines the border between social life, which is legally set, and life outside the public sphere. The lawmaker must follow the constitutional principles that frame the country as a legal entity, and only legislate those areas of social life which are encompassed by that legal definition. But at the same time, the lawmaker cannot legislate contrary to legal principles. This is what Shanley tried to argue when she pointed out the necessity of reforming US marriage laws at the time she wrote the article.
Shanley presents two critiques, or alternatives, to the conservative notion of marriage law at that time:
– First, contractualism tends to abolish marriage law on a national level. In other words, it rejects its special public-legal status and tries to substitute it with individual contracts. Contractualists say that when the right to get married is denied to some or given unequally, it is contrary to the constitutionally given rights of modern democratic society and it is ignoring the humans rights of equality, free personal decision, and pluralism. Thus contractualism would, using individual contracts based on the clients’ needs and desires, satisfy the notion of universal equality and freedom because it would make marriage possible for hetero-, homo-, bisexual and polygamous partners, men and women alike: “abolishing marriage as a legal category is a step necessary for gender equality. Marriage by contracts replaces gender stereotyping and protectionism of traditional marriage law with the recognition of individuality and equal agency of the partners. Marriage partners should be treated as rational actors capable of knowing and articulating their interests” (Shanley quotes Fineman; 19-20: 2004).
However, Shanley does not agree with the contractualists’ solution because contractualists take individuals to be rational and autonomous decision makers, who form community based on personal preferences, benefits and sources of personal pleasure, written and confirmed with contracts. This union is, to her, a union based on the principle of “give-get” and could be called an intimate version of consumer society. It does not give enough attention to individualists’ social and emotional needs (such as the need for love, reciprocity and co-dependence). It does not consider individuals’ variableness and moodiness; it does not address circumstances in which an individual can find himself (death, accident); it does not consider that marriage is higher-entity which exceeds individuals and ties them into a union with a “shared destiny.” A mere contract between married people does not express ethical, moral, loving and unconditional commitment to the other person(s) or to the relationship for a longer or even life-time period.
In my opinion, Shanley`s critique is imperfect because we know that heterosexual marriage served through Western history as a certain rational-economical-procreative contract: marriage was a tool which families used to increase their power, financial status, and reputation and assured a future for the family’s legitimism of authority through descendants (for some, this is still true). This type of marriage was not about love, morality, security, dependence or establishing a higher identity in which two became one and shared a common destiny. Shanley speaks about marriage as a romantic and enlightened project in which being in love (co-dependency and reciprocity) was a personal free factor for getting married that came into exsistence only in 19th century. Nonetheless, nowadays contractualists, beside a basic (heterosexual, procreative, economical) contract marriage matrix, try to enable legitimacy for all other intimate connections with different types of contracts.
We can also dispute Shanley’s critique of ethics and morals and commitment over time and say that contractualists are right. William Godwin already was in favor of the utilitarian theory of morals in his work “Research on Political Correctness” in 1793. He claims that we do not need to stick to moral regulations. Instead, we have to reach our moral decisions by comparing good and bad consequences of our eventual acts in each chosen situation. This was the foundation for the radical critique of conventional rules and institutions, together with the institution of marriage. “In his opinion marriage was morally unjustified and unreasonable (it distracted independent thinking) because marriage makes impossible to judge each exact situation, each personal and possible relationship based on their distinctions. It is based on absurd /expectation/ that inclinations of two human beings will coincide in longer time period. When we force them to work and live together we submit them to inescapable measure of distraction, arguing and misfortune” (Primorac quotes Godwin; 2002: 97).
- But Shanley is correct when she criticises that contractualists do not emphasize enough the state’s positive acts to promote and increase equality. Contracts, after all, can still maintain inequality (for example, inequality between a man and a woman in a marriage based on a contract). Although I have some second thoughts on Shanley`s objections to contractualism, I agree with her desire to see marriage’s reformation toward equal status and public good. As Sullivan says: “Marriage is not only a private contract it is a social and public recognition of personal commitment. As such it is in the highest public recognition of personal integrity” (Sullivan; 1995: 179). Thus Shanley`s purpose is to “preserve the idea that marriage is a special bond deserving of public status while rejecting-as incompatible with liberty and equality-important elements of the traditional view of the purpose and proper ordering of marriage” (Shanley; 2004: 6)7. She believes that marriage should be changed in order to serve as public institution which promotes public good - liberty and equality (man’s, woman’s and citizens’) - and presents successful combination of justice, intimacy and love.
Shanley claims that the social meaning of a life-long union (marriage) consisting of two adults is the fulfillment of emotional, sexual, moral, ethical (reciprocal respect, understanding, trust, help) and economical needs, wishes and partners’ interests. All these enumerated things must also be allowed to same sex partners, partners who live in polygamy, or a poor community, because these individuals satisfy mutual needs which could be a burden to society. Having the law changed in this way is important because it accelerates psychosocial and emotional stability and financial and legal security. It gives also the feeling of citizens’ social acceptance and support, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, class and race. I also agree with Shanley that we need to do more on other fields of public life and activity for effective change, especially in the area of work, and in this way change the laws on work relationships, the pay system, social care, child subsidies, and child care.
2) But what I find lacking in Shanley's reasoning about the reform of marital law is that she never broaches the discussion of the intimate relationship itself, for in a sense this is what is the real content of marital law. She never even tries to present the argument that we need freedom and equality in this area of our life, too (regardless of intimate relationship being part of our private sphere). Nussbaum rightly warns that facilities and legal systems are not embodiments themselves of eternal, perfect rules and structuralised relationships. “They are living systems which on one side embody people’s right emotions, values, beliefs and judgments and on the other side they raise appropriate feelings, values and judgments in them. This two-way relationship runs simply because we do not have a perfect system or perfect (compassionate and loving) individuals, this two things interchange and supplement” (Nussbaum; 2001: 185). So Nussbaum, in fact, claims that in order to have pluralistic, equal, and free democratic society, we need not only set, just institutions and laws, which will embody feelings, beliefs and judgments, but we also have to educate citizens and raise them to be loving, tolerant, free, equal and compassionate individuals – through a modern concept of (confluent) love which embodies the aforementioned values, beliefs and emotions. Sullivan’s thinking is similar when he says that “the law can indirectly influence culture if it persists on equality for all citizens and vice versa” (Sullivan; 1996: 170). Before Nussbaum and Sullivan, Rousseau and Tocqueville also showed that institutions and laws teach citizens how to define concepts of primary goods, responsibilities, convenient care for others, etc. They showed how institutions can, in different ways, encourage or slow down and form emotions which retard compassion; for example, feelings of shame, envy and disgust.
That is why we feel this is the time to present the idea of a modern confluent relationship: it is based on an equal relationship that embodies the principles of equality, freedom, and reciprocity; a relationship not restricted by sexual preferences and monogamy, as sociologist Anthony Giddens defines it. Giddens differentiates confluent love from passionate and romantic love. First, he divides passionate love (amour passion) from romantic love (romance) and romantic love from confluent love. It is typical that passionate love overtakes a man (charms him and can lead to religious enthusiasm) so that individuals in love can neglect everyday duties and surrender themselves to an ecstasy which belongs to the other (transcendent) world. This love has never been about the individual; it always serves to achieve other goals – temporary idealisation of the other joins a durable relationship with the loved object. Consequently, passionate love, from the standpoint of social order and duty, is dangerous and therefore never admitted either as necessary nor as satisfying the foundation for marriage. It has been seen as adulterous, even. Passionate love was mostly typical for aristocrats. Romantic love developed from these ideals (or idealisation of the other) and included elements of amour passion but still differed from amour passion and from Christian ideals. The influence of romantic love has been seen from the 18th century onward and it introduced the image of a story to an individual’s life. It is no accident that the verb “to romance” also means to tell a story. The story has now become individualised and places “I” (the ego) and the other into a personal story which does not have a special connection with broader social process (Giddens). Love was for the first time connected with freedom.
Amour passion was always liberating, but only because it altered the everyday routine (and this characteristic separated amour passion from other existent institutions). Romantic love meant that freedom is connected with reflection and consequently with self-execution. Therefore, romantic love claims a certain degree of self-questioning: why do I fall for the other? What does (s)he feel for me? Are our feelings deep enough to last? Romantic love separates both individuals from broader social circumstances in a different way then amour passion. “It ensures long-lasting life, directed in advanced expected future which both partners will shape in their own way. At the same it time creates 'shared story' which helps to divide marriage from other views of organised family and society and gives it special privilege” (Giddens; 2000: 52). Romantic love has remained until today, at least for women, the prevailing ideal, but it no longer means that the love will last a lifetime. Today’s romantic love “focus sexuality in expected future where girls see sexual contacts as detours on the way to final love relationship” (Giddens quotes Thompson; 2000: 56) which does not directly lead to marriage. The reasons for this are hypocrisy and inequality offered by the law to women: as much it was sometimes, on one side, the only tool of autonomy and adulthood, on the other side it was also a phenomenon of new kind of captivity and dependence of a man, which Shanely also discusses.
Today, we are working intensively to abolish this contradiction. Marriage was all this time connected with love, and when men and women began to separate it from the external factors on which it was traditionally based, the love relationship did not need equalisation with marriage but only with love. This relationship, named by Giddens the relationships of confluent love, is part of the general modification of intimacy at the end of 20th century and is characterized merely by a tight and lasting emotional bound with another human and which can or must lead to marriage. “Confluent love lasts only if the two sides think that it is mutually satisfactory and refers to situation where two people step into social contact because of the contact itself and because of what each person can gain when socialising with another person” (Giddens; 2000: 64).
This way, romantic love takes us to confluent love, which presumes equality by emotional and sexual giving and taking. “Love can in this position develop only as much as much develops intimacy and to what extend are partners willing to reveal worries, needs and vulnerability” (Giddens; 2000: 68). Sexual exclusiveness is in this relationship is defined by the partners’ agreement, however that do not mean that an equal relationship promotes a promiscuous and permissive relationship where partners can do what they want. These relationships are usually still binary. The main change is that in an equal relationship, confluent love does not have support from outside but must develop merely on the basis of intimacy, reciprocity, trust, equality and freedom. The question is how to establish a balance between autonomy and dependence: partners must try to preserve mutual trust and allow themselves certain freedom. To trust someone means to refuse opportunities where one can supervise, dominate or tries to suppress partner’s activities.
Unique for confluent love is also idea that it is not specially bound to heterosexuality. “If orthodox marriage has not became one among life styles yet, although in fact it is, it is partly because of institutional delay” (Giddens; 2000: 158). Giddens continues: “Confluent love which is not necessarily androgynous, is perhaps still structuralised around differences, and presumes a model of 'equal' relationships where it is important to know the characteristics of another. With confluent love is individuals’ sexuality only one of the factors which must be accepted when negotiating.” Giddens believes that gays and lesbians started to develop “equal” relationships before heterosexuals because they had to live with each other without traditional frames of marriage, in circumstances where partners were nearly equal. The expansion of homosexuality and bisexuality occurred when people started to look on sexuality as a characteristic which we can discover and understand reflexively, question and develop. Or as Giddens explains based on some findings of Foucault’s “History of Sexuality”: “Today we discovered and opened 'sex' so that it is easily accessible when different life styles develop. This is something we all have or raise and it is no longer natural circumstance which individuals accepts as in advance given condition. Sexuality works – we have to discover how - as some sort of I (ego’s) feature, can be shaped and is primary connecting point between body, personal identity and social norms” (ibid: 22). I (ego) and personal identity are today for everyone reflexive projects and are more or less incessantly questioning past, today and tomorrow.

Bibliography:

GIDDENS A. (2000): Preobraza intimosti; Spolnost, ljubezen in erotika v sodobnih družbah – Transformation of Intimacy: Sexuality, Love and Eroticsm in Modern Societies. Ljubljana, *cf.
JOGAN M., MAJERHOLD K., MLADENIČ D. (2006): Enakost žensk in moških v znanosti in raziskovanju v Sloveniji – Equality of Women and Men in Science and Research in Slovenia (Central European Center for Women and Youth in Science, EU Framework 6, Project). Ljubljana, Partner Graf.
LUHMANN N. (1986): Love as Passion, The Codification of Intimacy. Standford, Standford University Press.
NUSSBAUM M. (2001): Upheavals of Thoughts, Cambridge University Press, MA.
NUSSBAUM M. (1998): Sex and Social Justice. Oxford University Press, London.
PERRIN E. (sept. 2005): »SB 427 Study Commision to Study all Aspects of Same Sex Civil Marriage and the Legal Equivalents Thereof, Whether Referred to as Civil Unions, Domestic Partnership, or Otherwise«. State of New Hampshire, http://nh.glad.org/EllenPerrinSB 427Testimony.pdf
PRIMORAC I. (2002): Etika in Seks (Ethics and Sex). Ljubljana, Krt.
PRIBAC I. (2001): Moralna pogodba za samoljubne ljudi (Moral Contract for Self-Loved People). Ljubljana. Krt.
SHANLEY M. L. (2004): »Just Marriage – On The Public Importance of Private Unions«. Oxford University Press, London. ​

Online Queer Female Media is Dying…What Now?
​
Bottom line up front: online queer female media is on its deathbed. It is no longer a question of “will it?” but rather “how soon?” Given the (woefully short) history of online queer female media, it seems almost certain that the current landscape of a few major sites will be replaced by a constellation of small, individually run sites within the next two to four years. After that, the market could either regroup into a few large sites again, or it could stay indefinitely atomized. The answer depends on financing.

In the past two years, there have been multiple articles on multiple media platforms identifying the slow and somehow inexorable death of LGBT journalism. These articles clearly and concisely trace the rise and fall of queer media, linking its decline to increasing demands on the part of corporations for profit margins over social benefits. The conclusion that these articles generally reach is that because the heterosexual males running the business end of media conglomerates can’t see a way to monetize queer audiences, they have preferred to shutter LGBT sites rather than to explore alternative ways to monetize their readership. As John Paul Brammer writes in his article “The Lesson of Into”: “A resolution would require a fundamental restructuring of how media writ large operates and who operates it, a gutting of the offices of authority under capitalism.” Writers like Brammer are right: queer sites are bringing in insufficient revenue to cover their overhead and pay their contributors. To blame the decline of these sites on straight, white males, however, is an oversimplification. I would argue instead that the closure of queer news sites has little to do with sexual orientation and everything to do with how regular individuals, the faceless readers who make up a site’s traffic, interface with the Internet. In short, just as video killed the radio star, the Internet has inadvertently killed online media.

In her article “Does LGBT Media Have a Future,” former AfterEllen and Into editor Trish Bendix admits that the problems that queer journalists and queer media sites are facing are not totally limited to our community. In just one week in January, for example, layoffs were announced at BuzzFeed, Verizon’s media division, and Gannett, a print newspaper conglomerate. News sites everywhere have been tightening their belts and trimming already small staff for years (popular blogs like The Toast were shut down years ago). Bendix argues that much of the problem, for both LGBT and non-LGBT sites alike, is revenue-based: most advertising money isn’t spent on online sites. As a result, online sites must find an alternative source of revenue or they will quickly go under financially, and historically, LGBT sites have struggled to find that alternate funding. But one reason that the queer press feels like it is being hit harder than “straight” press, if such a thing were to exist, is that there were so few LGBT outlets to start with. If twenty-five newspapers out of 1,000 close across the United States, it becomes a small but interesting data point about the future of print journalism. If five LGBT sites close out of ten, it’s a massive existential crisis for the field.

When it comes to websites for lesbian and bisexual women in particular, this financial dilemma—which had been looming on the horizon since 2014 at the latest—has brought us to a crisis point. Bendix recently tweeted that AfterEllen was for sale again (it was last bought by Evolve Media in 2014), and in her article, she mentions that the founder and CEO of Autostraddle, Riese Bernard, is considering selling Autostraddle because it is barely surviving financially even with subscriptions, private donors, advertising, and events like its annual A Camp. If both these two bastions of queer female journalism and pop culture are lost, there will be all but nothing left. While Curve may be able to continue as both a magazine and a website, kept alive by its ad revenue and subscriptions to the print magazine, the rest of the queer female media landscape will be completely atomized, dispersed between generic news/pop culture sites that occasionally publish LGBT content (Huffington Post, Slate and Buzzfeed, for example) and small, individual lesbian sites run by one to three people as unpaid passion projects.

Given the LGBT community undeniably has a high degree of social cohesion, it begs the question why queer women are unable to save their landmark sites. AfterEllen and Autostraddle are iconic, bedrock websites in the queer female media landscape. They have often played a major role in readers’ coming to grips with their sexual orientation; helping them understand their identity and find a community. Couldn’t readers raise the money to keep these sites afloat through crowdsourcing, fundraisers, and subscriptions? The answer, unfortunately, is no. In addition to Autostraddle’s example, a mere 230 donors financed season four of the Brazilian webseries “RED” even though approximately 44,500 viewers watched the season for free, proving that fans would rather watch for free than donate even a token amount. Any effort on the part of sites like AfterEllen and Autostraddle to fundraise through crowdsourcing would likely have similar anemic results. Nor could fundraising necessarily be counted on. In 2017, an effort by AfterEllen to fundraise for hurricane relief raised only $1,000, an amount insufficient to run the site for even a month.

As a hypothesis, the reluctance on the part of Internet users to pay for content would seem to be a consequence of being habituated since the 1990s to receiving free content. The vast majority of the Internet is free, like a giant library or playground that users are invited to peruse at their pleasure. Unlike a print newspaper, which charges its readers a subscription fee, none of the queer female sites have required that readers pay for their online content. Asking readers to pay now through a new subscription service would likely fail because most readers would just diversify away from the site to free content. Why pay to read articles when the Internet is full of other free LGBT content, from message boards to Facebook to Instagram to Twitter?

As noted above, the closure of the major queer female media sites will leave only smaller sites, which have a much smaller and less centralized readership and are run by unpaid bloggers. So long as these sites lack budgets, their ability to generate significant content and bring on additional contributors will be constrained, which will in turn hamper their ability to generate widespread name recognition for their sites. In time, it is possible that some of these small sites will try to advantage of the vacuum left by the loss of AfterEllen and Autostraddle to expand and replicate the growth of those very same sites in the early and late-2000s and take a similar leadership role in the queer female media. However, at present it seems they can only be successful if they are able to find a new financial model, one that either generates more advertising revenue or gleans consistent and predictable donations/revenue from readers. The silver lining is that queer media likely do not have to find the answer to this problem themselves. Given that the revenue problem affects all online media, when eventually someone finds a solution, that solution will almost certainly be quickly implemented throughout the Internet. The only question is: “What will that look like and how long will it take?”

LOVE IS EVERYWHERE

First, something totally off the topic but you will soon see the point. Just bear with me, ok? Albert O. Hirschman (1966) in his book The Passions and The Interests argues that the rise of capitalism is a function of the activity of merchants and bankers, whose labour was originally considered sinful. So, what changed? How could a morally shameful enterprise become ethically acceptable? The answer lies in the moralizing role of the interest as opposed to the passions. At first Seventeenth century philosophers used the principle of countervailing passions – they defined which passions were to be tamed and which could be used as tamers. So passions such as ambition, lust for power and lust for sex needed to be tamed by other set of passions, hitherto variously known as greed, avarice, or love of lucre (1966, 56).

Another step in this process came with the discovery of “interest” and “interests” as tamers of the passions while trying to pit passions one against the other. While the passions made unpredictable and irrational, for instance greed now defined as interest could be cultivated by work and commerce, both intrinsically innocent and mild activities – at least vis-à-vis the wilderness of other passions, as Smith argued. So Smith dismissed the whole debate on how to tame one set of harmful passions (i.e. ambition) against the other (i.e. greed) simply by equalizing passions (to be more accurate one passion) and interests. So one passion, greed, self-interest at one point just became an interest. In Smith’s writing, the pursue of personal interest came to be recognised as the key to personal and social prosperity, happiness and even peace.

So what is my point: that as long we will be caught into the debate about trying to tame one bad outlook on lesbians with other less bad outlook we won't get very far in a positive (self)presentation. Instead I will show that homosexual love is equal with heterosexual one and that there is nothing shameful about it. On what grounds? On a simple one: it is love and it is friendship as the same big passionate or romantic love and friendship in a heterosexual relationship.

But let us go step by step. It is said by conservatives that the mission of straight relationship is union of men and woman with the aim of reproduction. If we are beings just to reproduce, i.e. spread our genes then lesbians certainly fulfill this mission. We can get pregnant without a big deal and bear a child if that is what it takes to. And we can do that in old fashioned way as it was presented in film Viola di Mare (ITA, 2009) based on a true story where the main character slept with a man or we can do it in a modern way by using a sperm donor as it was presented in film If These Walls Could Talk 2, part 3 (USA, 2000).
And if someone might say of a lesbian relationship as a wasteful relationship may we point to the fact that nature itself is wasteful – if you look at woman's period we have only 2 days of ovulation per month which is 24 days per year comparing with the rest of 340 infertile days per year - an awfully small amount. If that is what counts for the equality of lesbian couple with heterosexual couple – spreading our genes - we are certainly equal.

But that is not enough, conservatives say. We need to raise our children by giving them a model in the role of a mother and father. However, studies have shown that it is enough if you keep a presence of a male figure in child's life as if in the role of grandfather, brother, uncle and as it was done in the film Tous Les Papas Ne Font Pas Pipi Debout (FRA, 1998). On the other hand there are numerous studies showing that fathers in straight families are more and more absent (because of work) and the number of one parent families is also growing and both occurences having a much stronger impact on child's development then having two mothers who are loving and present. Children in lesbian relationships are ordinary kids having the same questions as other kids, as shown in feature/documentary film Gayby Baby (AUS, 2015).

But not that is not enough again. Conservatives also say their relationships are not so crude being based only on biological base but that there is (must be) love between partners. So do we claim – our aim of being together is certainly not only to produce and raise children but loving each other (and our children). What is the base of this love? The same as in heterosexual relationship – as being said it is not only a physical communication but also a psychological and emotional communication between the two personalities (partners), as in the case of romantic love.

Giddens points out its characteristics: “Romantic love became distinct from amour passion, although at the same time had residues of it. Amour passion was never a generic social force in the way in which romantic love has been from somewhere in the late eighteenth century up to relatively recent times. Together with other social changes, the spread of notions of romantic love was deeply involved with momentous transitions affecting marriage as well as other contexts of personal life” (Giddens, 1994, 44) as shown in film Desert Hearts (USA, 1985).

Romantic love presumes some degree of self-interrogation. How do I feel about the other? How does the other feel about me? Are our feelings 'profound' enough to support a long-term involvement? “Unlike amour passion, which uproots erratically, romantic love detaches individuals from wider social circumstances in a different way. It provides for a long term life trajectory, oriented to an anticipated yet malleable future; and it creates a 'shared history' that helps separate out the marital relationship from other aspects of family organisation and give it a special primacy” (ibid). Although Giddens argues that relationships have changed and proposes a new definition of (post)modern love as a confluent love as And Then Came Lola (USA, 2009).

And our relationships are indeed the same as heterosexual ones: (romantic) love is all about trust, individualism, compassion, reciprocity and intimacy. And intimacy is above all a matter of emotional communication with oneself and others in the context of equality. In this context women are emotional revolutionaries. And it is because understanding women's emotionality is the key to understanding intimacy that Giddens also considers accounts of lesbian relationships a key source of understanding a 'pure relationship' as a general type!

And the base of our love is also friendship. As Aristotle said you are friend with someone for the sake of doing good to each other. This type of friendship is based on a person wishing the best for their friends regardless of utility or pleasure. Aristotle calls it a “...complete sort of friendship between people who are good and alike in virtue...” (Aristotle, 1966, 120) and in aspirations, wishes and interests (we add). This type of friendship is long lasting and tough to obtain because these types of people are hard to come by and it takes a lot of work to have such a virtuous friendship. He also argued that this type of friendship is very close to love.

That is why a true loving long-lasting lesbian relationship includes also being a (best) friend with the partner. Aristotle also argues that there are similarities between friendship of virtue and that of utility and pleasure, however; it is only the good that can endure in such a friendship. As Aristotle puts it, “it is clear that only the good can be friends for themselves, since the bad do not enjoy their own kind unless some benefit comes from them” (ibid.), as presented in film Julia (USA, 1977), based on true story and Fried Green Tomato (USA, 1991) although the latter is not an explicit lesbian film (however, it's considered being full of lesbian subtext which book according it was made doesn't hide it).

So the pursue of personal love's preference can be again recognised as the key to individual and social prosperity and happiness. Indeed we can say that partnership and/or marriage is only one form of love, although the most common one. Yet it is true that love also has other – and as we will show many – forms and even degrees (some are more intensive then the others). Different forms mean that we can find love between friends as we showed with Aristotle and Montaigne in one of our previous texts on this site, but also between acquaintances, co-workers or even strangers.

What straight women gotta do with lesbians?
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This short article does not wish to provide insights into which woman lesbian is going to be eventually attracted to and even more she would like to be with her for the rest of her life and have a family with. This article aims at providing insights into incorrect assumptions regarding lesbian's taste(s) for heterosexual women.
Namely, I quite often found myself in situations when all of a sudden heterosexual married women start mentioning their husbands and I wondered why? I questioned myself, did I say something or made a certain gesture that made them assume I fancied them? I know myself, I rarely fall in love therefore I could not find any such reasons: I mean, I could occasionally feel attraction (which I rarely acted on) but actually finding myself in a relationship with a woman that always required proper context and I rather let woman chose me then I chose her and for the reasons mentioned I knew it was not me who had any emotional or sexual thoughts about those married women. For that reason I started finding such behavior by heterosexual women rather annoying and I mean really annoying to the point that I decided to write this article.
I know I already read this type of article written by other lesbians, however I must repeat their thoughts: heterosexual women do not flatter yourself that every lesbian would fancy a heterosexual woman or consider 'tasting' you intimately. If you do then it is something about yourself and the 'blame' is on your side that made you think that way, it is rather you who felt being attracted to the lesbian you encountered not the other way around. I mean, why a lesbian would be attracted to a heterosexual (married) woman, what are the reasons for such unreasonable assumption? What is so special about you and why do you think lesbians are 'treaschures destroyers' of the relationships (what made you think that at all)?
I know, contrary to common belief, not every lesbian is a promiscuous, I never had a one night stand, had only two girlfriends and with the latter I would stay with her for the rest of my life if her father didn't set to ruin our relationship from the day we met due to his political and religious beliefs and in the end he succeeded. Therefore it is a mystery to me why so many heterosexual women assume lesbians would find them always attractive because they are for instance beautiful, witty, humorous – do heterosexual women assume that every men is always attracted to them? Why would assume that, would they consider this kind assumptions reasonable and on what grounds? If we use analogy or metaphor with preference for certain tastes, colours, designes, art, even philosophies we can say 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' and we can explain that statement with Dubos's, Hume's and Kant's philosophies that tastes for something are individually prefered and unless someone expresses that preference it can not be known to the other person and even less someone can infer or imply universal taste or preference for something - it is simply incorrect thinking without providing proper reasons. Why I use analogy with tastes for human attraction? Humans have tried to make different explanations for attractions and offered different concepts of love. Here is my article History of Love on concepts of love through western history if you wish to know some of the explanations. However, humans have not provided a universal explanation of emotional and sexual attraction and marriage commitment yet. I also do not offer any explanation of the causes of attraction – why and to whom in this article.
Therefore explanation through analogy of tastes still apply. Let us explain the reasons for statement that 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder': judgments of beauty are not (or at least not canonically) mediated by inferences from principles or applications of concepts, but rather have all the immediacy of straightforwardly sensory judgments. It is the idea, in other words, that we do not reason to the conclusion that things are beautiful, but rather “taste” that they are. Here is an early expression of the thesis, from Dubos’s Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting, and Music, which first appeared in 1719 (from Standford Encyclopedia):
"Do we ever reason, in order to know whether a ragoo be good or bad; and has it ever entered into any body’s head, after having settled the geometrical principles of taste, and defined the qualities of each ingredient that enters into the composition of those messes, to examine into the proportion observed in their mixture, in order to decide whether it be good or bad? No, this is never practiced. We have a sense given us by nature to distinguish whether the cook acted according to the rules of his art. People taste the ragoo, and tho’ unacquainted with those rules, they are able to tell whether it be good or no. The same may be said in some respect of the productions of the mind, and of pictures made to please and move us". (Dubos, Jean-Baptiste. 1748,vol. II, Critical Reflections on Poetry, Painting, and Music, T. Nugent (trans.), London. p. 238–239).
And here is a late expression, from Kant’s 1790 Critique of the Power of Judgment:
"If someone reads me his poem or takes me to a play that in the end fails to please my taste, then he can adduce Batteux or Lessing, or even older and more famous critics of taste, and adduce all the rules they established as proofs that his poem is beautiful… . I will stop my ears, listen to no reasons and arguments, and would rather believe that those rules of the critics are false … than allow that my judgment should be determined by means of a priori grounds of proof, since it is supposed to be a judgment of taste and not of the understanding of reason". (Kant, Immanuel, 1790, Critique of the Power of Judgment, trans. P. Guyer, and E. Matthews, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 165.).
But the theory of taste would not have enjoyed its eighteenth-century run, nor would it continue now to exert its influence, had it been without resources to counter an obvious rationalist objection. There is a wide difference—so goes the objection—between judging the excellence of a ragout and judging the excellence of a poem or a play. More often than not, poems and plays are objects of great complication. But taking in all that complication requires a lot of cognitive work, including the application of concepts and the drawing of inferences. Judging the beauty of poems and plays, then, is evidently not immediate and so evidently not a matter of taste.
The chief way of meeting this objection was first to distinguish between the act of grasping the object preparatory to judging it and the act of judging the object once grasped, and then to allow the former, but not the latter, to be as concept- and inference-mediated as any rationalist might wish.
​Here is Hume, with characteristic clarity:
"[I]n order to pave the way for [a judgment of taste], and give a proper discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained. Some species of beauty, especially the natural kinds, on their first appearance command our affection and approbation; and where they fail of this effect, it is impossible for any reasoning to redress their influence, or adapt them better to our taste and sentiment". (Hume, David, 1751, Section I, Hume, D., 1751, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, in L.A.).
With this short expose on reason and judgment of tastes I tried to show that when married heterosexual women think or imagine that every lesbian would feel (any) attraction towards them they should follow Hume's lead of giving 'a proper discernment of its object ... much reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained'. The same applies to their husbands if they would feel any envy or jealousy – again there is no reason for those.​

Jill Sander – Lesbian Popular Fashion Designer (Why Popular Lesbians Matter part 2.)

As a young philosopher who was interested in fashion world and written a few articles about philosophy of fashion and philosophy of beauty and fashion models in 1996 (there have been only a few authors at that time) and in general who regularly wrote and translated articles about latest fashion shows and fashion models and was regularly watching weekly CNN fashion review shows I was fairly and pleasantly surprised when discovered that German minimalist fashion designer Jil Sander is lesbian. I wondered and wonder how come I have not known that before! It is almost impossible to overlook sexual orientation of such an important and amazing fashion designer.

I also always wondered how come that there have been so many gay fashion designers and almost no lesbian fashion designers. The same as I used to dance modern dance in my adolescent and student years and there have been plenty of gay dancers and almost no lesbian dancers. Where these disproportions came from I have always wondered? I still haven't gotten the answer. And obviously I am not the only lesbian who is wondering and is baffled by the fact that lots of people think that fashion is for straight women and gay men: these two articles perfectly nail my wonder and astonishment: Where Are All the Lesbians and Queer Women in Fashion? and Where Are All The Queer Girls in Fashion?

Anyway, this article is dedicated to 74 years old lesbian fashion designer and icon Jill Sander. As I read, Jill was together with her partner Angela Mommsen for nearly 30 years.
From November 2017 until May 2018 Jill Sander had her first ever solo-exhibition 'Jil Sander. Present Tense' of her 40 years long fashion designer career in Frankfurt's Museum Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Arts). Jil Sander launched her first collection in 1973 as a 30 years old woman, creating modern, minimalist clothes that would go on to redefine the working woman's wardrobe. Jil Sander can best be described as fashion’s first feminist and has the strongest claim for empowering women through what they wear. As she said herself: “I never thought of myself as a feminist, but maybe I was, since I was not happy with the way women presented themselves,” the designer says. “I think my work was more about the rapprochement of the sexes and a more androgynous look for men and women. I was looking for more supportive ways to dress myself as a working woman. And since my needs were collective needs in the era of women entering the business world, my work turned out to help them.” The exhibition showcased everything from Sander's expertly tailored coats and dresses to her popular cosmetics line and artistic collaborations, highlighting her lasting impact on what is considered modern in fashion even today. ​

Other famous lesbian fashion designers I could find are Patricia Field (stylist of TV-shows such as Sex and The City and Younger), Jenny Lyons (who used to be 26 years president and executive creative director of J. Crew) and Courtney Crangi (sister of fine jewelry Philip Crangi).