It’s just over a week now since David Bowie died and the reaction to his death, and his legacy, is ongoing.
Naturally one of the biggest discussions has been the impact Bowie has had on sexual politics and our ideas of sexuality, gender and identity. This was actually something I wrote about just days before his death. Bowie was a chameleon, living a life of fluid sexuality, gender and identity.
Yesterday I recorded a podcast (to be uploaded soon) about Bowie and his sexual legacy. A big part of our discussion was about the fluid nature of Bowie’s sexual identity, something which lead me to ask the question, could Bowie be Bowie today?
This question came to my mind after my fellow podcaster Ben asked me — how would Bowie have identified himself sexually? The answer is not simple.
Bowie first ‘came out’ as gay in 1972, just before the release of Ziggy Stardust. He did so whilst married to his first wife, Angie. His ‘coming out’ however did not seem to affect his marriage and in fact they stayed together until 1980. Over time this label of ‘gay’ changed and soon Bowie spoke more about himself as being bisexual. Ziggy Stardust, who I reckon was a strong reflection of how Bowie saw himself at the time, was identified as ‘bisexual rock superstar’.
But this changed as well. As Bowie got older he seemed to drop the bisexual label, whilst at the same time not denying his sexual past. In an interview later in his life Bowie was asked “you were gay for a while?” to which he responded “I was just happy… I got me leg over a lot.” Bowie goes on to talk about his promiscuous ways and how that promiscuity extended to people of all different genders.
It is this fluid identification that really defines Bowie as an artist, performer and human being. It is his lasting legacy on sexual politics. Yet at the same time it is reasonable to think there is no way he would have gotten away with similar shifts if he were performing today.
Since the sexual revolution of the 1970s, in which Bowie played a major part, our perceptions of gender and sexual identification have become deeply essentialised.
When it comes to sexuality this has been framed largely through the lens of the ‘gay gene’ and the idea that we’re all ‘born this way’. Sexual identity has become fixed — you are born into one and any variation is an abnormality. Even within chunks of the gay community bisexuality is still seen as a ‘phase’ someone goes through until they decide on their real sexual identity. If people divert from our understandings of sexual identity (i.e. straight identified dudes having sex with men) then you are quickly ridiculed and told to ‘just admit’ that you are gay. Even worse if you dare suggest that your sexuality can be fluid you are quick to be chastised. Probably the most famous example of this being the reaction to Cynthia Nixon and her declaration that she chose to be a lesbian. Nixon was told by many that her statement was hurting the cause of gay rights and in turn forced to backtrack.
The same can be said about gender. As trans* issues, rightfully, enter the mainstream, discussion of gender is becoming essentialised. Instead of being a social construction, gender is framed as an essential part of one’s being, with gender becoming increasingly naturalised in what can be seen as a very conservative way.
Altogether this is creating a culture, particularly within queer communities, that I’m not sure Bowie would have survived in. With a growing essentialisation of gender and sexuality, it is easily possible that Bowie would have been seen as ‘playing’ with gender and sexuality, something I think many would consider to be mocking gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans* folks. We can see this play out with those who don’t fit these essentialised norms, whether it is some of the reaction to Brooke Hemphill’s “Lesbian for a year” (which did genuinely have a lot of problems) or the controversy over the banning of drag queens at a pride event in Scotland last year. In both of these examples those who didn’t fit the essentialised notion of gender or sexuality were attacked by other queers for daring to do so.
This leads me to ask a number of questions. Would we, for example, accept a man who comes out as gay while remaining married in today’s culture? Or would we tell him that his identity is wrong and that he’s using our sexual identifier as a way to boost his career, at the expense of our community? Would the idea that Bowie was performing differing genders, as he often did throughout his career, be seen as insulting to the trans* community? Would we let someone get away with such open promiscuity without criticising him for hurting the political chances of other gays and lesbians?
I ask these questions as I think they could say a lot about the impact of essentialising sexuality and gender identification. These questions highlight to me where we’ve come as a movement and a community, and in ways that deeply concern me. Bowie was clearly not perfect but he had such a deep impact on the ways in which we think about gender, sexuality and identity. He shaped much of our modern thinking, and for the better.
It concerns me deeply that we would likely attack anyone who tried to do the same. And that their influence could be lost.