Susan Boyle's 'Coming Out'

All this talk about sexuality and choice, but what does it mean to be asexual in so highly sexed a society as ours? I really despise those ‘Got Talent?’ shows, but I couldn’t help feeling completely paralyzed by Susan Boyle’s performance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” She’s been an international sensation, but not just because of her beautiful voice. Susan Boyle, at 47, walked on stage to an emotional flogging. Catcalling and boo-ing when she walked on stage, audience members showed absolute derision at her less than conventional aspiring singer appearance. Simon was more snarky than usual, showing exasperation when Susan explained her solitary lifestyle and to the perverse delight of the crowd, gave a little shimmy. And then she took up the microphone, and in a very powerful (yet overly dramatized moment) Susan Boyle began to look very attractive to media moguls and youtube viewers everywhere, and it wasn’t just because of her voice. Susan Boyle is 47 and has never been kissed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

We live in a world where people (women especially) are perceived as being broken, dysfunctional, or neurotic for being undersexed. It is a kind of “double bind” (Sedgwick 913). In the text, "Epistemology of the Closet", Eve Sedgwick addresses the causes and consequences of sexual-identification. Yet what about those who choose, or are born asexual? The fact that ‘sexual’ is the root of all terms of to describe orientation, is for approximately 60 million self-described asexuals, harmful. This is yet another aspect to the ‘double-bind’ of sexual terminology that forces persons to devalue their “truth” (913) on the basis of choice in sexual subjectivity. She writes, “I would suggest that an understanding of their irresolvable instability has been continually available, and has continually lent discursive authority, to antigay as well as to gay cultural forces of this century” (913). It is a sad fact, that sexual-objectification is so determinative of a woman’s worth under the voyeuristic male gaze.


Whether or not it was Susan’s choice to remain celibate is taken for granted based on her looks. Western media denotes individual worth on the basis of sexual appeal. Women who become public figures are judged by standards of prudery. In our society it is assumed that abstinence or celibacy is a deliberate rejection of sexuality for religious, medical, or pathological reasons. But if sexuality is a spectrum –why is asexuality considered so defective? Intrigued, I did a little research and found an article from the ‘National Religious Vocation Conference’ where it was declared if a person isn’t sexual, ‘they aren’t a person’ because sexuality is a ‘gift’ from God and therefore a fundamental part of human identity. Although the conception is that not having sex is a choice, then those who don’t have sex are treated as virtually nonexistent, inhuman.

Women are publicly persecuted for repressing their sex drives—and taking out their pent up emotion in the workplace, for instance. Hilary Clinton is a case study of how this works in reverse—stoicism and equanimity can also undercut your fan base. For what other purpose does Cosmopolitan sell so many copies of ‘101 sex tips to enhance your self-esteem!’? The answer is pretty clear in Adrienne Rich’s text, “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence.” Women must market their sexual attractiveness to men. Men have control over women’s sexuality because sex is power. Hence the flood of letters sent to women’s magazines where women and some men complain of the discrimination they feel in a society that renders them invisible. Yet I think Rich’s text doesn’t explain the number of male asexuals. They too, of course, seek emotional friendships and romantic desires rather than erotic ones. Many asexual/autoerotic/homoromantic/heteroromantic persons come out to their family and friends, declaring their orientation to be as valid as being straight or gay. Perhaps we ought to be rethinking a compulsory sexuality in broader terms—if celebrity sensationalism indicates anything it is that both the repression and expression of sexuality are both forms of public persecution.

And it isn’t just men, either. Women can be very harsh critics of other women. Take this popular blog posting for instance:

“The idea of keeping her in her original state is sentimental and selfish. Is she supposed to bolster your self esteem? One of her attributes is that she’s never been kissed. (She’s 47!) Should she retain her virginity along with her bushy eyebrows so that TV viewers can feel warm and squishy?”

I found this post very hard to read, because this woman’s objectification of the talented Susan Boyle felt like a mutually self-derisive project. This woman, a self-described professor of law, attributed Susan Boyle’s celibacy to her religious devotion, and brain damage. She said she could benefit from a show like “What Not to Wear” and “Extreme Makeover.” These shows are so explicitly abrasive to women, contestants are verbally assaulted for not conforming to the dress-code standards in the workplace. The contestant is always broken down, beaten into submission. And the shows always end on an emotional high-note, where the less-than-perfect people, who snap out of their emotional repression, ‘come out’ to society a new, happy person. Again, women who have ‘let themselves go’ are ‘hiding from themselves’ as though celibacy is so taboo in society that one must mask it.


I also find it infuriating that whether or not Susan should undergo a Hollywood makeover in order to ‘clean up’ her bushy eyebrows has fueled a publicity campaign. A recent NYT article offered this interesting tidbit on the extreme “not so young and not so beautiful” prejudice: “Amanda Holden (Britain’s Got Talent judge), artfully put together and seemingly unable to move her face to register surprise—said that Miss Boyle should resist submitting to a Hollywood-style makeover.” She purportedly reasoned, “the minute we turn her into a glamourpuss is when it’s spoilt.” Where does objectification end for women? Either she is supposed to get a makeover and fail to conform to the hypersexual, pop-star persona, or she doesn’t and is patronized not despite her virginity but because of it. Is this the “it” that would “spoilt?” Sanctifying her ‘dowdiness’ in this entertainment industry is equivalent to heretical stoning. Even though Susan Boyle’s life story is attractive in every other way, when it comes to surface appearances and sexuality, in this misogynist culture, she cannot win.

Note: It seems Susan did get a makeover according to the NYT, describing her new look as “wooden” when she appeared as a guest on “the Early Show.”