I'm allergic to corniness.
But I'm trying to overcome it.
Many years ago, back when I was a teenager, I read The Ethical Slut on a friend’s recommendation. I was already familiar with the concept of polyamory, but figured I should read the book that so many people credited with their non-monogamous awakening.
Friends, I hated that book.
It wasn’t that I disagreed with the points being made, those were fine. And I could see why people liked the book. But it was just so unbelievably corny.
It’s been decades since I read the book, so most of the details have been memory holed, but I do recall one specific bit that felt particularly cringe — something along the lines of “Sex is nice and pleasure is good for you” being presented as a mind blowing revelation rather than just, you know, a basic fact. (IIRC the book said one of the authors had used that statement as the basis of a dissertation or thesis or something? IDK it just seemed… weird, even at the age of 18.)
That general reaction — that automatic rejection of anything in the general vicinity of corny — has been a defining part of who I am for many years now. When things get overly earnest, I get deeply uncomfortable; when simplistic statements are presented as deep truths, I cannot help but roll my eyes.
And it was this aversion to corniness that led me to keep a lot of bisexual activism — or what I perceived as bisexual activism — at arm’s length for so very long. Bisexual Myth Busting™️? The constant talk of bisexual celebrities having their identities erased? The puns? It all seemed so unbelievably corny, embarrassingly cheesy, just something I desperately did not want to be.
The thing that helped me embrace bi activism — that helped me reclaim the label bisexual rather than rejecting it in service of something cooler like queer — was discovering that there was a whole segment of bi thought and theory that didn’t feel corny to me, that felt passionate and cutting edge and incisive. Reading Bi Any Other Name — an anthology I had low hopes for given the punny title — cracked me open, blowing my mind with the revelation that bi activists in the early 1990s had been writing theory that felt vibrant and urgent even thirty years later. Realizing that bi people, that bi activism, didn’t have to be corny allowed me to embrace it.
But now, in the first week of Pride Month 2023, I find myself softening a little towards that corniness I’ve so aggressively rejected for so many years. To be clear, corniness is emphatically not for me: the stuff I found so uncomfortable and awkward all those years ago is still uncomfortable and awkward now.
But I am trying to tamp down my revulsion all the same — to recognize, at least, that being corny is hardly a cardinal offense. Yes, I may think that the lines that other people see as life changing are simplistic and obvious, and I may find other people’s boisterous enthusiasm a little too much. But so what? What cares? It’s not like being corny is a capital offense.
More to the point: in this uncomfortable moment for LGBTQ people, this era of rising backlash and terrorist threats against Pride and anti-trans laws passing in states across the US, there is a beauty and a bravery to any public act of queer joy. Even the corny ones.
I am trying to remember that.
I am also trying to become more accepting of corniness, so I relate to a lot of what you wrote. I’ve noticed two taxonomies of corniness: One is about overly simplification and infantilizing the audience. The other happens when someone is earnest - which is honest, which requires bravery! A lot of that latter kind of corniness has been excruciating for me exactly because someone else is telling a truth I’m not yet capable of bearing myself. I aspire to be corny in that way.
Gosh that book. I also bounced off it somewhat but I do appreciate that a lot of the stories in it felt like they too place in genuinely queer spaces rather than at the assumed-female-bisexuality spaces of a lot of polyamorous meetups I actually went to. (My feelings about books on polyamory are also colored by the fact that for a while everyone in the space was recommending Fr*nkl*n V***x's book, and I was a meta-metamour of said dude and was not impressed by either firsthand experience or thirdhand gossip, so I have a lot of resentment about that left over that has nothing to do with any of your points!)