I read with great interest the article published on this blog last week by four students. I don’t want to focus on the central topic of the article, which in my opinion deserves more in-depth analysis and maybe even a discussion with them, but I have grasped its intelligence.
In that article students ask themselves many questions without wanting to find an immediate answer.
On the contrary, a few weeks ago a small article was published in a national newspaper about the choice of students of a Roman high school to adopt an asterisk in all school documents to avoid gender issues.
A politically correct choice which, however, makes me suspect that it is a neutral and perhaps too fast answer to uncomfortable questions that would deserve a deeper reflection, a loophole to avoid thinking and feeling uncertain.
Beyond the beauty of the Italian language that in this way fails, it comes to my mind a scene of an old comedy, Brian of Nazareth, in which a character striving to avoid gender issues in the end loses the thread of his speech and is forced to remain silent.
Our culture is still very backward from many points of view: I am thinking of family law, violence against women, the custody of children in separations and the subject of conception. These are all areas in which progress has not been made for years and in which scientific and social progress is constantly being hampered by conservative pressures. To counter these pressures, however, the solution cannot be abstention. We must not confuse the stance with the judgment and avoid making a dialectic on these issues for fear of being pointed out as moralists. Saying “it’s all right” is just a palliative because when you’re dealing with such intimate experiences, such delicate emotions, it’s not all right.
For some years now our society has been proceeding in my opinion towards a strange type of censorship: clearing pornography, perversion, masturbation as normal and at the same time debating the kiss of the prince to Snow White because not consensual (since she was sleeping great). It seems to me that questions are asked about the form to avoid questioning the content.
Can “gender issues” really be reduced to an asterisk?
Can it be stated that not asking questions about human sexuality is the best way to free people from centuries of oppression on this issue?
The development of sexuality and the search for an adult identity is one of the most complicated things a human being can do. It begins during adolescence and goes on for the whole life. It is shaped by a thousand experiences, errors, emotions, malaise, hopes. If you look for shortcuts, if you don’t ask yourself any questions, if you look for simple solutions you take away the meaning of people’s lives. It kills the research and history of individuals. I want to challenge you to find someone who has never questioned why they always choose the same type of woman or man, why they are embarrassed in certain situations, why that fuck was beautiful while the one after with the same person did not go well, etc.
It’s research that then goes to compose our identity. The clashes, the disappointments, the well-being, the desire, the separations faced are our deepest heart.
I know that we are still a long way from gender equality, that sexuality is often confused with violence and that, unfortunately, there is a great deal of discrimination. But how are we going to solve them if we eliminate the problem with an asterisk?
Perhaps we should ask ourselves what is so disconcerting in sexuality that we should always reduce it to a mere pursuit of pleasure, to a physical exchange. What does it mean to desire? What does scandalize you to the point of having to judge, deny and cancel it?
We are trapped in a non-existent culture of anaesthesia and confusion, so maybe feeling close together with another person, with the mind and with the body, to overcome their limits and find new certainties is a revolutionary act. Sexuality is politically incorrect.
Gioia Piazzi
Thanks to Chiara Fanasca for the translation of this article
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