Liminal Labels
I had a professor in my freshman year who loved the idea of “liminal spaces” – spots that are on both sides of something; they are neither here nor there. She loved to tell us, “It’s OK not knowing.” She loved the parts of life that were not black, that were not white, that were not even gray. They had a color of their own, a color we could not name. Her attitude was so antithetical to the scientia sexualis that Foucault proposes as the rampart of our society – the need to label, organize, “scientificize” everything.
I see a lot of the labeling in Chapter 7 of Peiss’s textbook, in both the textbook itself and in the analysis of the articles. In the former, we have Julia Deane Freeman asking, “what name can we give to their attachment but that of ‘woman friendship?’” (189), and in the latter, we have the author, who encourages us to ponder what these ostensibly non-sexual relationships mean.
I think it’s OK to want to know, to even obsess – were they lesbian lovers? Perhaps kindred spirits, as Anne of Green Gables would say? Or just best friends? But it’s also OK to be comfortable with the not knowing, to be comfortable with the thought, “I have no idea. And I don’t need to label it, to give it a name that will make it real.” Sometimes I think we all want to let go, but our culture seems to have ingrained within us a deep reverence for intelligence. Letting go – not knowing – seems the ultimate abandonment of those principles. If you don’t know, you must find out. But what if you don’t want to find out? What if you glory in the unknown, if the question mark is your comfort? Are you then ignorant, foolish, a redneck who cares for nothing but your own guns and your own God? I don’t know. But there’s something to be said for the acceptance of what will be a mystery for all time.
Liminal, labels. Both work. Pick your choice.
Tags: liminal, scientia sexualis
March 21st, 2010 at 10:24 pm
Beautifully said.
I totally agree that it is “OK to be comfortable with the not knowing.”
I had a literature Professor who said something along the lines of:
“Sure, you can separate things into black and white. But it gets boring. What is really of interest to writers, to artists, etc. are the grey areas.”
What amazes me about humanity is the simultaneous sense that we are essentially the same in our human experience and capabilities, yet we are vastly different.
I find that labels are so limited in speaking about human experience because even within the confines of a label there is much variation.
The liminal space is much more interesting to study.
Records of individual stories and experiences can speak worlds more than any commentary trying to confine them to one idea or lifestyle.
So I’ve made my decision. : )
P.S. I love the Anne of Green Gables reference. I’ve read the whole series, and I found myself thinking of her often as I read the excerpts from women’s letters.