Column | With a little sense of language you understand about what it means: fauxmosexuals

‘Fauxmosexuals. ‘ I let this word float above the market for a moment, but with a little sense of language you understand about what it means. That’s how it went: this week I came across it for the first time in my life, and I confronted my tendency to google. I love words whose meaning I don’t know exactly, it takes me back to my childhood when I said with a lot of Aplomb, as a nice neighbor asked what I wanted to drink: an aperitif. That sounded more interesting than a glass of milk, and I know that I was furious when I was told the scope of my statement. Why only one meaning? The magical language world was endlessly reduced by adults.

Now the context of ‘fauxmosexuals. ‘ For a few years I have been following the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah. I am a fan of his work and have sometimes met him in Amsterdam. Recently I get Appiah in my inbox for free, because he writes down the section ‘The Ethicist’ The New York Times (thanks, thanks NRC). He treats ethical issues in a light -hearted way: everyday questions he provides with an elegant philosophical floor. It reminds the Dutch reader of the Beatrijs Ritsema section, which she wrote for for years for Dagblad Fidelity. By the way, Ritsema was the one who pointed me to Appiah’s section, also because she thought she was making her own pieces more philosophical. Her death, just over two years ago, kept her from it.

Back to Appiah. He gets a question from someone who has oneClose, Cisgender Male Friend« Holds. He is married to a woman, monogamous, and is already with women all his sexual life. But this friend now calls himself ‘queer’, because through therapy he has discovered that ‘gender’ is not really important to him in his sexual choice. He has developed ‘queer manners’ and goes to’ queer events. ‘ Is that actually allowed, or is there really cultural appropriation here? (Some issues suddenly sound antiques, from before the brother band between Putin and Trump).

In his answer, Appiah uses the concept ‘fauxmosexuals‘, and the ethicist explains that the questioner’ does not have access to the erotic theater in someone’s ‘head’, and has not been appointed to surveillance sexual boundaries. Then used the internet: fauxmosexuals is snake From what used to be the gay scene was called. People like that suggest a different (sexual) identity than practiced in daily life: we used to call the one -way hetereman who seeks erotic attention of men in good Dutch one cockteaser. But there are also people who, for example, assume a Jewish identity without being able to invoke any Jewish ancestor – it is striking that the latter change has not been in demand since the Gaza War is not in demand.

My question now is: is there an unchanging, authentic itself, or do you have to say that there are practices that can change over the years? The Hetero develops bisexual feelings, the atheist or Catholic wants to ‘come out’ as a Jew: it all happens and does not have to be fraud. But the fauxmosexual Expect the benefit of his transformation, while he knows he makes others happy with a dead sparrow.

In that sense, many politicians are fauxmosexuals. From Putin to Trump and our own Wilders: they promise or suggest at least something that they know they cannot live up to. See also sheaf and his ‘no’ against joint European loans. They are therefore not necessarily suspected of sexual deception. They are simply called statesmen or voters.

Stephan Sanders is an essayist.

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