It used to be the most important thing about you was your race. Martin Luther King dreamt of the day his children would be judged by the quality of their character rather than the colour of their skin. What he didn’t anticipate was that skin colour would be replaced as the most important thing about you by your sexual orientation. Personally I’d rather I’d been allowed to continue to prioritise race over sexual orientation. But I’ve accepted that “the times they’re achangin”.
That said, I could handle LGBT. But when they added the Q I could see where it was going. So in anticipation – and to save my ink cartridges and vocal cords – I started calling them the Alphabet people. That worked for a while, but then they started adding numbers, like 2, and math functions, like +, and then … So then, I thought, I could cover all future contingencies by calling them the Keyboard people.
Well, no such luck. I met someone the other day who had no trouble with his pronoun, but insisted that we were denying his very existence by excluding his sexual orientation. “What sexual orientation is that?” I asked. “Ineffable”, he answered. “Oh, okay. So tell me about it.” I said. “I would if I could but I can’t,” he answered. Well, not much else he could say, right?
Denying the very existence of someone of ineffable sexual orientation must be hurtful. So I’ve taken to replacing ‘Keyboard’ with ‘Keyboard and Not’. I could have opted for ‘Keyboard and Ineffable’, but ‘ineffable’ isn’t. Ineffable, that is. By the very fact it’s a word, it’s obviously effable. ‘Not’ is effable too, but it doesn’t tell us what it’s negating, other than it could be anything not on the keyboard.
The trouble is there are an infinite number of things not on any keyboard which are not his sexual orientation. How am I to know which one of those infinite number of things is? So the problem with claiming an ineffable sexual orientation is that it’s not very informative. Well, other than it’s not one of the sexual orientations with which we’re familiar enough to have given it a name.
But hang on. Maybe we are familiar enough with it but we haven’t given it a name because, well, it’s ineffable.
Okay, confession time. When I said I met someone the other day, I was lying. It’s me. If you asked me who I’m sexually attracted to, or if I ask you who you are, our answers would die the death of no end of qualifications. “I would never want to sleep with … Well okay, maybe if …” I think – and now I’m just speculating – that I wouldn’t want to have sex with someone I couldn’t fantasise having a romantic relationship with. But even if that were so, could I give myself the necessary and sufficient conditions for who I could fantasise having a romantic relationship with? No. You couldn’t either. Why not? Because that’s just the thing – isn’t it? – about what we are or are not attracted to, sexually or otherwise. It’s ineffable.
But if it’s ineffable, why do I bother making up shit and telling everyone I’m a this or a that or some other thing? My being a this or a that doesn’t tell you whether I do or don’t want to sleep with you. What tells you I do is what tells me I do – that I find you attractive. What tells you I don’t is what tells me I don’t – that I don’t find you attractive. Telling you I do or I don’t is because I’m a this or a that, or that you’re a that or a this, is just gratuitous.
As it happens – and here I’m just guessing – for me to want to sleep with you you have to be both female and attractive. Alas, it turns out you’re neither. If you need an explanation for why I don’t want to sleep with you, why say it’s because you’re a man rather than because you’re ugly? Heaven forfend I should tell you it has something to do with the quality of your character!
Categories: Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Humour
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