Welcome to Issue 20 of Obsessions, one queer femme’s look at the nexus of culture, politics, bodies and identities. Today’s post is about television and teaching yoga in New York City in the aughts. Thank you for opening. All I can say is that my unexpected break was due to a lot of adult responsibilities and a family emergency. I may speak in more detail eventually, but I’ve really been wanting to put more time into my Substack and have just had to let myself deal with this being pretty irregular as of lately. I’m glad you’re here now though, seriously.
My mind is like a caged rat in an obstacle course filled with various kinds of unsatisfying cheese. I can’t get my mind on a leash for very long because she’s used to running from one cheese block to the next. My little mind hasn’t always been this way. When I started teaching yoga in NYC, I told my yoga teacher I didn’t have a television. She smirked, couldn’t hide her annoyance. Things that yoga teachers bragged about in the aughts included: juice cleanses, sugar cleanses, doing yoga in Mysore, India, and again juice cleanses. And I guess not having a television would be considered a brag, even if it was true. My yoga mentor at the time was a charming territorial teenage lionness. She distanced herself from gay women and told me at one point that I was bisexual because I had been sleeping with men. This was when my boundaries were more like Swiss cheese. Sipping on Malbec on Park Avenue, I would say things to the wrong people. I would say parts of the story and then someone would tell me what the story meant. I was bisexual, apparently. I remember many things about the teenage lionness who taught me yoga. She was a great teacher, she didn’t like that I didn’t have a television, and she was homophobic. I say that she was homophobic because of other things she did. Most of you reading this are. It’s okay though. Everyone’s a little bit racist and a bit homophobic and the only way you can know how true that is is to let your rat brain run around and pick up ideas freely and let them be what they are which is harder today because of cancel culture. We can’t really talk openly about what thoughts we are struggling with which means instead we just let them control us.
I’m in a snarky, sclerotic mood.
More than one person asked me over a decade ago if this teenage lioness was a lesbian, but they didn’t ask it the way you ask now if someone is lesbian chic.
I don’t know, I’d say. Ask her.
Today I’d say She seems a tad bit too weak to choose lesbian chic, but what do I know.
I could read this teenage lioness though. I knew she didn’t want to be perceived that way. I knew very little about her sexuality and maybe she didn’t feel comfortable to confide in me even though she would bitch about one of our yoga studio bosses that would regularly sub out her classes 45 minutes before they started and then show up to the studio the next day in 5 inch stilettos. She was a shitty boss, but the other person who ran the studio was a cis man who is most likely a sexual assailant. I guess my 5 inch stiletto boss wasn’t that bad, just a little bit more interested in being on a movie set.
My mind is partially like a caged rat now because I have a tv downstairs in my living room and I also watch HBO Max from my bedroom laptop while window shopping for ecommerce. Recently, I can’t stop myself from looking up the ages and astrological sun signs of actors. Kate Winslet is a Libra and Kristen Stewart is an Aries. I’m constantly itching, either between my toes or on my neck or by my left eye. The pandemic affected my posture. I changed from having yoga teacher posture which I thought would stay to rounding like a caged, housed animal.
Last year, television became one of my favorite things. I watched Killing Eve, Physical, The Mare of Easttown, and The White Lotus. Killing Eve chose to cast straight women*. None of the shows that I loved were about queer women or non-binary folks, although there is a queer AFAB teenager in The Mare of Easttown. And then this year, the show And Just Like That, a reboot of Sex and the City, featured Sara Ramirez who plays a non-binary comedian. And Just Like That remains a silly show, but it doesn’t throw Sara Ramirez’s Che underneath the bus. Their quick-witted, confident, and more embodied than the original Sex and the City women. Television writers are trying to make up for historical rashes. All of the old queer characters from the 1990s are covered in someone else’s sins because the only feelings that were allowed to exist, really, in the 1990s were Jerry Seinfield’s and Ross and Rachel’s.
Thanks for reading. Listen to your heart and your intuition, especially these days, and send prayers to Ukraine.
Renee
*The point isn’t that Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh are straight. I don’t think it’s my job to determine that. I just feel very strongly that Hollywood should reward out queers with better roles because better roles are economic power and it is the economic power that changes lives. Queer identity is like very complicated and often someone like Glennon Doyle will come out of the closet and get mainstream accolades because they don’t threaten the mainstream culture too much. Culturally, Glennon is new to the queer community, but within mainstream culture, she is a voice that seems to speak for us and that is weird. In comparison, Rachel Maddow came out at 18 or 19 when you know people still yelled slurs at us and told us how ugly we were. The reason so many lesbians like Rachel Maddow is because we know she did something that was right without knowing how it would work out.
In the early aughts the remarkably encouraging young yoga teacher I met modeled a place of inclusion for me in stark contrast to the other social options available to me. But these days I have noticed yoga studios are increasingly populated with scary "Karens," by that I mean people who value order over justice: People who chant that mantra of acceptance and forgiveness so that they can consider themselves "good" people for overlooking a racist or homophobe in their midst. They don't seem to understand or care that when good people are silent the bad ALWAYS win. Not saying anything to someone who is cruel to a trans kid, because you "want to accept everyone and their views" ironically crushes the more vulnerable person. It's tone deaf in ways I can't even explain to the perpetrators despite trying very hard
Of course not so true of yoga studios in urban settings, but the suburbs are certainly increasingly stubbornly non-diverse. It's maddening the way they have painted themselves as the victims (all they want is a place to themselves!) and as fragile, (we just want to feel safe in our neighborhoods!) And point the finger at anyone who calls them out (No, You're the hater!). Maddening. It's hard to be a kid. It's hard to be an LGBTQ kid. It's hard to be trans. They need our support, our tangible protection - not just hopes and prayers. I know you know that, just wanted to get it off my chest
I am the worst at getting back to people, but I did see this and smile. And I do like your engagement. True. Right, order over justice and what a clear summary. Yes. Because under capitalism if you choose moving towards justice, it'll slow down the bottom line (Sara in the back will be disruptive because Sara is a socially awkward person who tends to alienate people but a good teacher will not highlight her awkwardness because she/they believe in inclusive environments). I mainly am at the point where I don't have answers only questions. I know for example that my classes I was teaching 4 years ago weren't accessible to disabled bodies and I know tbh that they might not have moved in that direction because there are so many needs already that one tries to meet. I'm still kinda shocked that most teachers that are hired are white and are not only straight-sized, but between sizes 0-4. I have no idea who needs to see this, and I know that folks who have always been a 2 have blind spots about teaching (unless they've aggressively pursued education). I guess on some level I'd rather walk into a studio and know they don't give a f*** about inclusion than walk into a studio after it became politically and capitalistically smart to embrace the BLM movement and see they've added a black teacher or two. I think a lot of this social signaling actually is for white people or straight people. For example, you can hire the newest member of our queer community (cis, white, completely new to queer culture) and you might actually be doing more harm than good (i.e. we need folks who are invested in making life better for our communities and usually folks who don't live at the margins don't understand how to measure partially because they think social signaling is doing the thing and it's not at all).
Thanks for sharing. You are the best.