What’s identity got to do with it? The social life of sexual identity in the Netherlands

Abstract

Same-sex erotic desire, or same-sex orientation, has become commonly understood and expressed through the notion of sexual identity. This article takes an intergenerational perspective to study the genealogy of sexual identity in the Netherlands. The authors explore how queer people perceive their feelings of same-sex desire and whether or not they come to understand their erotic desire in terms of sexual classifications. Their research shows that when discourses on gender and sexuality shift, the way people make sense of their erotic desire takes different forms. It appears that people’s lived reality is messier than the notion of sexual identity presumes.

Introduction

While often taken for granted, ‘sexuality’ is a slippery term. It can refer to a biological drive, a human capacity to be sexually aroused, a practice, an identity, and also moral evaluations of the former. In its narrow sense, sexuality is nothing but the invention of 19th-century European sexology, a specific way of producing and organizing knowledge about sex, which first gave rise to the supposedly deviant category of the ‘homosexual’ and, only later, to its supposedly normal mirror category of the ‘heterosexual’. According to Foucault, the scientific study of sex produced ‘sexuality’ when it transformed the practice of sodomy into a sexual identity: while ‘[t]he sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species’ (Foucault, 1990: 43). Such an ‘articulation of identity’ (Weeks, 2003: 4), where sexuality becomes central to self-understanding, has become the most common way of perceiving and representing same-sex desires and practices in the global North. ¹ The scope of classifications indicating sexual and/or gender variance in relation to identity has been expanding since the emergence of the ‘homosexual’, expanding beyond lesbian and gay to include bisexual, transgender, queer, non-binary, intersex, and more. While we subscribe to the importance of recognizing the variety of erotic, gender and sexual classifications, we also wonder, in line with Wekker (1999): what exactly does identity have to do with it? – and borrow the evocative title of her famous article, as it remains a topical question.

The answer to this question might also seem self-evident, almost common sense (Halperin, 1989; Wekker, 1999; Kimmel, 2007). We have come to see sexuality as an important part of the self – so important, in fact, that it relates to what and who we are; sexuality has come to inhabit a ‘special status’ in our being (Jackson and Scott, 2010: 823). The gay emancipation, or in Anglo-Saxon terms liberation, ² movement introduced phrases like ‘born this way’, which emphasizes the biological and therefore natural aspect of same-sex sexuality, shifting away from the normative idea that homosexuality was a (sinful) choice (Hekma, 2011). A ‘master narrative’ of same-sex sexual identity emerged as the product of the long struggle for recognition and rights (Hammack and Cohler, 2009: 455). The idea that sexuality is a natural part of the self shapes how we understand sexuality, becoming a part of our sexual stories (Plummer, 2010). The term ‘sexual identity’ thus articulates that we have come to see same-sex desire as essential to personhood: it indicates that ‘the core of our being, our essence, the privileged site in which the truth about ourselves and our social relationships is to be found, corresponds to something that we call (homo-) sexual identity’ (Wekker, 1999: 436). However, as Wekker (1999) indicated more than 25 years ago, this understanding of sexuality is a cultural phenomenon. The idea that ‘the body speaks the truth of the self’ and that sexuality is a substantial part of our identity is historically and culturally specific, rather than a universal truth (Moore, 2012: 12; see also Halperin, 1989). For many people around the world, what you do is not necessarily what you are: not everyone links their sexuality to the idea of identity, and if they do, they do not always do so in the same way (Blackwood and Wieringa, 1999; Dankwa, 2021; Massad, 2008; Spronk & Nyeck 2021; Valentine, 2007). How, then, did the cultural formation of same-sex sexual identity come into being and what does it do in a global Northern context such as the Netherlands?

The notion of sexual identity as a natural fact stands in contrast to the scholarly approach of studying sexuality as a social construction (cf. Simon and Gagnon, 1973; Jackson and Scott, 2010; Weeks, 2003). Foucault’s ground-breaking work initiated the study of what is now called ‘gender and sexuality studies’ and/or ‘queer studies’, analysing the interconnections between, on the one hand, personal gender, desire, and the body and, on the other hand, dominant norms and values and truth claims. Analysing the social construction of sexuality, then, entails studying how cultural and political-economic contexts shape gender and sexuality, and thus how power structures the (im)possibilities of gender and sexuality. Particularly, the focus has been on how cross-sex sexuality has been privileged while same-sex sexuality has been stigmatized. Over the decades, ‘sexual identity’ has been conceived in relation to sexual development, with a linear narrative that begins with repression/concealment and eventuating in coming out (Rosenberg, 2018). For instance, the book The Story of Sexual Identity describes the ways people ‘make sense of desire as individuals develop their sexual identities’ (Hammack and Cohler, 2009: 13). The book’s chapters focus on how particular historical and cultural contexts shape how people have come to understand same-sex desire and overcome patriarchal heteronormative sexuality.

In this article, we understand ‘sexual identity’ as both an analytical concept that is commonly used as well as a descriptive term for self-understanding. Here, we take a step back and consider how understandings of same-sex sexuality have materialized and evolved across three generations. We are particularly interested in how a narrative of queer sexual identity emerged and consolidated, and now continues to shift. The articulation of same-sex identity appears to be an ongoing development where the meaning of identity itself appears to be unstable. In other words, in the spirit of Foucault, we explore the genealogy of same-sex sexual identity in the recent history of the Netherlands.

People’s understandings of their erotic desire or sexual orientation, and the meanings they attach to their experiences, are contingent on their social and cultural contexts, which can be conceptualized in terms of generations. According to Mannheim (1970), significant social events and/or collective experiences lead to the classification of a generation. In the Netherlands, two eras are commonly distinguished as Mannheim implicated: the era after World War II (1950s and 1960s), the era commonly seen as a time of sexual liberation (1970s and 1980s) (Blom 1997). We add a third one that we may characterize as the time of globalization and particularly its impact on media (1990s and 2000s). In this research, we spoke to people who came of age during these three eras, and found that recognition is crucial in biographies of self-understanding. Acknowledgement of one’s own same-sex feelings and the recognition of these feelings by others and the resulting knowledge were central aspects of what has come to be understood as sexual identity. Yet the recognition of same-sex desires has shifted considerably over time: the feelings are the same but the meanings they have been given have shifted. This is related to the available discourses about (same-sex) desire, or ‘sexuality’. The first generation explained how they often lacked the language while tacitly knowing about queer sexuality. The gay emancipation movement generated a discourse on the importance to know and subsequently the importance of labels or categories. The last generation grew up in a time where knowing, in the sense of classifications, was common, yet the imperative of knowing precisely one’s identity created uncertainty. Sexual identity is thus not a self-evident affair, it has its own social life.

Methodology

In order to understand the way people from different generations made sense of their sexuality, we conducted oral history interviews with 27 queer people in the Netherlands. This method allowed for many experiences and the different ways people make sense of their lives to come to the surface. The study took place for 4 months in 2020 as part of the first author’s research master’s thesis project; interviews often took place in people’s homes, on Zoom (because of the Covid-19–related lockdown), or in a public park.

In our conversations we adopted a ‘progressive style’ of interviewing, following people’s life events in chronological order (Spronk, 2012: 42). We began by asking questions, such as where people grew up, the schools they went to, and how they experienced their childhood. Once they were at ease, we asked questions related to experiences of being queer. Topics that were frequently discussed were childhood, high school, first time falling in love, first time realizing they were attracted to people of the same sex, which words they used to describe themselves and how they learnt these words, societal discourses on queer sexuality, how they met other queer people, their coming out (if they had one), and many other experiences. Most people were interviewed at least twice. Eight people belonged to the oldest generation (70+), thirteen were between 50 and 70 years old, and six people were between 20 and 40 years old (for this last generation, anecdotal evidence from the social lives of the researchers was supplemented). Most participants were white, three had an Indonesian background, and two had a Surinamese background (Indonesia and Surinam were former colonies of the Netherlands). All participants belonged to the middle class, and thus this study is not an accurate representation of the general population. In total, 12 women and 15 men participated, and most were found by contacting queer organizations in Amsterdam or via personal contacts.

One note on terminology. As it is our intention not to use ‘sexual identity’ as a self-evident term but to investigate its social history, we employ the term ‘self-understanding’ to indicate what is usually subsumed under sexual identity. We also use the term ‘queer’ to indicate the field of non-normative genders and sexual desires, while using the term ‘same-sex sexuality’ or ‘same-sex desire’ for what is commonly referred to as homosexual, lesbian, and gay. Apart from a small cosmopolitan-oriented group, ‘queer’ is hardly used for self-identification in the Netherlands.

The Dutch context

The Netherlands is an interesting location to study this topic because it is often seen as one of the most liberal and progressive countries in the world when it comes to same-sex sexuality (Hekma and Duyvendak, 2011; Keuzenkamp and Bos, 2007), despite ongoing stigmatization. Sexuality, including same-sex sexuality, has become relatively normalized: it is openly spoken about in public institutions as well as in general society, and the topic is regularly discussed on various media, such as television and radio programs, books, magazines, movies, and on social media (Bosman et al., 2019).

This is in strong contrast to the post-World War II period, when sexuality was rarely spoken about in public or in schools, let alone same-sex sexuality (Schuyf, 1987). Being interested in the same sex was considered an illness. ³ In the medical field, theories on the origin of same-sex sexuality were heavily influenced by Freudian psychoanalysis, and ultimately attributed to neglectful parenting (Hekma and van der Meer, 1995; Van Naerssen, 1987). Until the 1950s, the Netherlands was a ‘staunchly religious society with conservative sexual morals’ (Hekma and Duyvendak, 2011: 103). The country was socially divided according to religion: Catholics and Protestants lived within their own (sub)circles and from schooling to football, society was divided into so-called pillars (zuilen). In the 1960s, secularization set in (Kennedy, 2005) and, as church leaders realized that they risked losing touch with society, views on masturbation or same-sex sexuality slowly shifted. Pastoral care, focusing on the mental health of those previously considered sinners, was introduced as a new, relevant role for the church (Bartelink and Knibbe, 2022; Bos, 2005). In 1963, the contraceptive pill was introduced, indicating that the primary purpose of sexuality was no longer reproduction, but sexual pleasure. Despite these shifts, in general, sexuality was considered to belong to the private sphere of the home, and was only acceptable among married heterosexual couples who wished to start a family. Traditional gender roles remained in place as they were before the war: women stayed home to care for the children, while men worked (Schuyf, 1987). As we will explain later on, same-sex sexuality was alluded to, often in stigmatizing ways.

Towards the end of the 1960s, the Netherlands entered a period of rapid secularization and sexual liberation. Under the influence of new scientific views, a turn to individualism and the emergence of youth cultures that demanded more (sexual) freedom, the ‘depillarization’ of society took place. These developments engendered a significant shift in the way people viewed sexuality. Rather than a private subject that belonged behind closed doors of the home, sexuality became a political and personal subject, discussed on talk shows, radio programs, and television. The shifting discourse on sexuality created space for women to express their dissatisfaction with the way their lives were organized around reproduction and marriage (Tielman, 1987). While this sexual revolution did not happen everywhere across the country in an even way, it was very noticeable in Amsterdam. Multiple feminist and gay and lesbian movements were founded that strived towards sexual choice and equality for women as well as the celebration of queer sexuality, such as Paarse September (Purple September), Rooie Flikkers (Red Fags), Lesbian Nation, Cultuur-en Ontspannings Centrum (Cultural and Recreational Center), and Het Vrouwenhuis (the Womenhouse) (Davidson, 2018). In other words, same-sex sexuality was brought ‘into discourse’ (cf. Foucault, 1990).

The 1980s, however, brought about a dark period as it marked the start of the AIDS crisis. The crisis had a ‘double effect’ on society (Hekma, 2006: 129). On the one hand, AIDS was considered a ‘gay disease’ (homoziekte), which added stigma on an already stigmatized group. On the other hand, the AIDS crisis made it easier to talk about same-sex sexuality more openly, as AIDS became a general topic of discussion and empathy was expressed toward people suffering from the disease. During this time, it became important to have legal recognition of same-sex relationships in order to be able to care for each other, organize housing, and attain social benefits. Equal marriage rights, therefore, became a prominent topic within the emancipation movement. Years later, in 2001, the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage. In general, the 1980s were perceived as a gloomy period and it was not until the 1990s that the spirit of celebrating sexuality was taken up again.

During the 1990s and into the 2000s, the gay emancipation movement consolidated, at the expense of the women’s movement (Davidson, 2021), ⁴ and came to reflect a larger combination of gender and sexual variance. Same-sex sexuality also became institutionally recognized and relatively normalized in the wider society. For instance, same-sex sexuality is now part of mandatory sexual education in schools (Bosman et al., 2019; Krebbekx, 2020); Pride has become a national festivity, and the Netherlands has a special police division called Roze in Blauw (Pink in Blue) that is solely dedicated to anti-queer violence. More importantly, digital technology made it possible for people from different countries and cultures to, in an unprecedented way, connect with each other, learn about and participate in sexual sub-cultures, and collaborate in the fight for sexual rights (Boellstorff, 2012). The innovation of the internet made it easier for people to engage with other people’s life experiences and stories, which affected the way they made sense of their own. Personal stories and experiences but also artistic expressions and popular media generated different discourses. Those in the youngest generation in this study often mentioned using the internet and social media such as YouTube to calibrate their own sexual experiences. However, the shrinking of the globe occurs in uneven ways, and global Northern discourses have become hegemonic, which has led to an expansion of very particular new categories and words to describe sexuality (Wilcox, 2014). For instance, in the Netherlands, the term queer has been introduced as a new category of identification. In general, the normalization of gender and sexual variance, as expressed in the expanding acronym LGBTQI+, has occurred, yet in a context of a heteronormative, binary understanding of sexuality. Thus, over the last half-century, same-sex desire has been steadily brought into discourse, with different inflexions. Below, we explore how this has engendered shifting forms of self-understanding.

Post-war period: Tacit knowing

The people from the first generation, now in their 70s and 80s, grew up during a time marked by a near absence of language concerning sexuality, affection, and desire. The majority of them had never heard of the existence of same-sex desire during their adolescent years, nor any words related to it. They made sense of their erotic feelings and sexual experiences by using descriptions of their bodily sensations. While later the availability of language made it easier to reflect upon, communicate, and understand certain (sensuous) experiences, being able to articulate or put these experiences into language was not needed for knowing these experiences. This became clear in a conversation with Pierre, aged 78. When asked how he found out he was interested in men, he explained:

In my fraternity we discussed books; one of them was De Avonden by Gerard van Reve. I got very nervous when I read that. The word ‘homo’ is not even mentioned in the book. But I recognized so much [ik herkende zoveel], the atmosphere [de sfeer], oh, that atmosphere at home with that boy, and that was actually the first time I realized that I actually belonged to that world [dat ik eigenlijk in die wereld thuis hoorde]. I did not even know the word for it. […] There was not even sex in the book! Very strange – I cannot explain it. I recognized myself in it [ik herkende me daarin]. There was not even sex in the book, he is not even attracted to boys, that is not at all what it is about. What a book.

De Avonden is considered a classic novel in the Netherlands for its masterly depiction of the low-spirited 1950s, nascent generational conflict, and sexual repression. Pierre gained knowledge about his sexuality through the experience of what he described as ‘recognizing myself’ and ‘feeling nervous’; he sensed affinity. While Pierre was unable to articulate why he felt nervous or what he recognized, he nevertheless knew that he ‘belonged to that world’. This type of knowing is tacit knowledge, ‘something that we know but cannot express’ (Gourlay, 2002: 3). Tacit knowledge is difficult to put into words because it entails indirect know-how; at that time, in relation to erotic sensations, there is no language available to accurately describe such bodily experiences (Janik, 1988; Dankwa, 2009; Bosman et al., 2019).

Most men realized something about their feelings was wrong from ‘hearsay’. There were conversations and rumours about people in the neighbourhood being ‘like that’ (die is zo), ‘having no women-meat’ (hij heeft geen vrouwenvlees), being ‘from the wrong side’ (van de verkeerde kant), or being ‘a she’ (een zij). These phrases were often accompanied by a hand gesture in the form of a pat on the hand or arm. Some people remembered hearing insulting words directed at homosexual men, like flikker, nicht, utrechtenaar, mietje, or pisnicht, while not always knowing what these words referred to. They did know, however, that their connotation was negative, which was largely due to the fact that people were ‘giggly’, ‘secretive’, and disapproving when using these words, and the words had a ‘weird, unpleasant tone’. The men who were called flikker or nicht were referred to as ‘strange’, different. Though they could not explain what was different, they nevertheless learned that it was negative, if not wrong. Most men recalled hearing other men being called flikker or nicht, and not thinking it had anything to do with themselves until others started calling them these names too. While such names made them feel ostracized, they did not realize this language referred to a person with same-sex desires until later in their lives, sometimes only after their first sexual experience with a man.

Many people from this generation described feelings similar to Pierre and most did not understand the meaning behind these feelings, so they explained. They felt the attraction and sensations of course, but they did not connect that desire to a type of being, nor did they consider it to be a specific aspect of themselves. Many people described ‘body language’ (lichaamstaal) as an important means to recognize like-minded men but also to calibrate their own feelings. Other people’s body language such as laughing, looking, hiding, and gestures such as a pat on the hand played an important role in shaping and creating knowledge about (same-sex) sexuality. It played an important role, as ‘code language’ to recognize each other in public so that they could meet each other (in secret). Body language often occurred simultaneously with the name-calling mentioned above. The meaning of their tacit knowledge only became clear once they met with other queer people, and were able to reflect upon their feelings and experiences. Language can give direction and signal meaning, making us better aware of our experiences (Polanyi, 1962; Crossley, 2001).

For men, the realization that ‘homosexuality’ was a term that described same-sex desire often came after they had had erotic or sexual experiences with other men, or after other people called them names. For women, learning about the existence of same-sex erotic desire or sexuality was different. Many women mentioned that words such as flikker and homo were ‘about men, never women’, because ‘women did not exist as homos’ (Joy, aged 78). Whereas there were multiple words available for homosexual men, women mentioned the absence of a conversation about women’s sexuality altogether. Since women’s sexuality in general and especially erotic desire between women was almost unthinkable, it became possible for women to develop deep and close friendships with each other outside of the discourse on sexuality. Many women had intimate friendships with other women during their adolescent years. They occasionally slept in the same bed together, were physically close to each other, without having any idea that this could be considered unusual let alone could be seen as sexual. Beth (aged 76) explained:

I always had a best friend that I did a lot with, cuddled a lot with, was very close to. But lesbian [lesbisch] was kind of, at that time, you would almost say, unknown, it wasn’t spoken about, there was nothing about it in the media. Actually, it was completely unimaginable [kwam volstrekt niet in beeld]. […] But I do know that when I started college – when I was in the women’s association, my aunt said: ‘With all those women you have to be careful’. I had no idea what she meant. With those women you have to be careful?

Being physically intimate with friends was nothing out of the ordinary according to Ria, who said simply, ‘Best friends did that’. Later, however, other people in her environment made her aware of a ‘strangeness’ and ‘danger’ that was lingering whenever women became intimate and close to each other. But she shrugged it off. Most women said they knew of the word ‘homosexuality’, but thought that it had nothing to do with women, so it remained irrelevant to them. Instead, women described their feelings towards women in different ways: feeling comfortable around them (op mijn gemak), interested or inspired by them, and finding other women exciting (spannend). Women also explained how sometimes intimate friendships led to sexual experiences but they did not recognize this as sexual, it was not ‘between a man and a woman’, reflecting the discourse of the time. Eventually, they were pleasantly surprised by the discovery that they could also have sex with a woman, describing it as a ‘new possibility’, and as ‘pieces of a puzzle coming together’ (Anneke, aged 75). Their negative attitude towards marrying a man and their dissatisfaction with traditional gender roles also began to make more sense, as feelings many women were aware of since their early childhood but could not quite put into words.

Most women heard of the word ‘lesbian’ for the first time when they came into contact with the second feminist movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It was connected to the realization that there is an alternative way of living one’s life that did not include marriage between a man and a woman. There was a strong sense of solidarity among women who began meeting to resist patriarchal structures; according to many, women ‘became lesbian’ (werden lesbisch) during these gatherings (cf. Schuyf 1987: 25). Ria (aged 78) described a group-based therapy for women called the Feminist Radical Therapy Group (Feministische Oefengroepen Radicale Therapie, FORT), where women slowly started to see themselves as lesbian. In FORT groups women could vent their emotions and discuss complex topics such as rape and abortion rights. Ria recalled:

I met women who became lesbians in that FORT group. Because it was such intimate contact, intimate emotional contact is also very bonding. And then the step to physical connection and intimacy is not that big at all. We were already lying [in bed] together, we massaged each other and we did God knows what. So suddenly there was a lot more space to do much more with women than only talking and crying. Or getting mad or whatever. Or emotional things. […] So being a lesbian suddenly became much more normal [het lesbisch zijn werd opeens veel gewoner], suddenly it was possible, suddenly it existed, it suddenly has a name [dat kon ineens, dat bestond ineens, dat heeft ineens een naam].

Retrospectively, Ria understood her same-sex desire as ‘lesbian after all’. Here, we see how feelings become made intelligible through language. Still, despite the absence of (positive) language on sexuality, people who came of age during the post-war period were able to make sense of their experiences through tacit knowledge. While people experienced and recognized their feelings of same-sex attraction, these feelings were not described as belonging to an aspect of the self or as belonging to a specific social category. It was not until the gay and feminist movements that these categories became more known and important.

The era of the sexual revolution: The importance to know

During the gay emancipation movement in the 1970s and 1980s, being ‘out and proud’ became an important slogan: it was no longer necessary to hide one’s sexual desire, and ‘coming out of the closet’ (uit de kast komen) was considered a form of liberation from having to hide ‘who you truly are’ from the outside world. Same-sex desire was thus reconfigured from tacit knowledge, experienced by bodily sensations and feelings, to being explicitly named. Openly declaring one is lesbian or gay was believed to be an important step in the self-acceptance of one’s same-sex desires, a step that ultimately would lead to destigmatizing non-normative ways of being. The coming-out process thus not only articulated the acceptance of ‘homosexuality’ but became a signal of personal well-being and emancipation (Maliepaard, 2018). The position of queer people was two-fold, though, for while the gay emancipation movement increased discourse on same-sex sexuality, it remained stigmatized. People met in secret locations, such as the gay bar Amstel Taveerne in Amsterdam, a bar with no windows and a strict door policy to ensure the safety of the people inside, or in less secret places such as Het Mandje, a bar for queer women and men founded in 1927. Women often met each other in feminist spaces rather than bars. They also chose to wear specific ‘masculine’ clothing and hairstyles as it spoke to the patriarchal norms of feminine beauty that they counteracted with their appearance while, at the same time, it enabled them to recognize each other in public.

People who came of age during this time often expressed the importance of using sexual categories for self-knowing as well as for presentation in the social world. Several participants mentioned that they found it important to know another person’s sexuality. Knowing the sexual orientation of a person made them appear ‘more human’ (menselijker), as became clear in the conversation with David (aged 65). During a Zoom interview, David explained his confusion regarding the prime minister of the Netherlands, Mark Rutte. Rutte’s sexuality has frequently been a topic of discussion and speculation among the general public as well as the media, precisely because nothing is known about it.

David: It is especially important that you stay true to yourself no matter what you do. That is actually the most important. […] I also never denied it. You also have people who do that and who more or less lie about it. Take Rutte and you don’t know at all what it is with him [hoe dat zit bij hem]. You suspect he likes men. He doesn’t make it clear. That’s a bit strange. I can’t make sense of it very well. It could also be that he is asexual but then be clear about it, I would say [kom er dan voor uit].

Silva: so it’s important to say something about it?

David (65): Yes. That you… something that suits you, that you make it clear that that is what suits you.

Silva: why is it important for someone to say that?

David: Sexuality and relationships are an important part of yourself, of who you actually are. So… you want to know that you have a real person in front of you who has sexuality, or not, that’s also possible of course… I notice that with him it bothers me.

David makes it clear that what is important is not what Rutte’s sexuality is exactly, but rather revealing and acknowledging it. Even if Rutte has no sexuality or relationships at all, as David says, part of what makes him a real, authentic person is ‘coming out for that’ as it is said in Dutch.

The idea that a person can only live a fulfilling life if they are ‘honest’ about their sexual orientation is connected to the global Northern idea that sexuality is a most important aspect of being, or as Rubin (1984: 278) writes: ‘sexual acts are burdened with an excess of significance’. Not only was knowing another person’s sexuality considered important by the people in this generation, but it was also important to know they were telling the truth about it. But the act of stating one’s sexual preference was not enough to be seen as the truth. The ‘right’ social category must also be used. Several participants from the middle generation mentioned their frustration with people not labelling themselves correctly. They referred to it in multiple ways, such as ‘denial’ (ontkenning), ‘making excuses’ (wegpraten), ‘condoning’ (vergoeilijken), or ‘covering up what it is’ (verdoezelen van wat het is). Hanna (aged 63) explained:

If you are living a lesbian life then you should not complain that you are not lesbian. I know those women you know. Two friends of mine […] have been together for 25 years now and keep claiming that they are not really lesbian because it is ‘just a coincidence’ that they met each other and now love each other and are getting married, buying a house. Women, you are living a lesbian life! You are lesbian! And they keep saying that it is not true. Well, I really think that is bizarre. I think it is so weird! That is still something like no self-acceptance or something. My friend Eva also keeps saying she is bi. Then I think, that may very well be but you are living a hetero life with your husband. You are actually a hetero.

Even though Hanna knows her friends are sexually involved, it frustrates her that they are still not telling the truth, because they refuse to categorize and label themselves as ‘lesbian’. For Hanna and many other participants, using the correct sexual category was seen as an important step in understanding and accepting oneself. By contrast, not coming out and using inappropriate labels was experienced as the opposite of emancipation. People who came of age in this era thus placed an emphasis on wanting to know and the need to make known to others their sexual desires, and in turn expected others to do the same as it is considered an important part of queer emancipation.

The era of global interconnection: Knowing precisely

People coming of age around the turn of the 21^st century grew up in a context where same-sex sexuality was relatively normalized and where gender and sexual variance became increasingly recognized. Due to technological developments and the emergence of the internet in the 1990s, people gained access to all kinds of information and knowledge that was previously unavailable to them. A global discourse on same-sex sexuality, including global networks for emancipation, connected people and, in these exchanges, influenced people’s ideas and experiences of sexuality. New words and sexual categories were introduced in places where they did not exist before. Whereas the older generations grew up not knowing language related to same-sex sexuality, the youngest generation in this study (now between 20 and 40 years old) grew up knowing the meaning of the words homosexual and lesbian, which were soon joined by newer terms such as queer, transgender, non-binary, pansexual, and more. In other words, this era is characterized not only by the power of language but very much by the expansion of categories, of indicators of multiple ways of sexual and/or gendered identification (Boellstorff 2012; Wilcox 2014).

However, the process of categorization, of dividing erotic desire or sexuality into sexual classifications, was not always understood as straightforward by the younger group. Many of them said that, at some point in their lives, they had been unsure about whether their same-sex desires were simply feelings of desire or meant they were queer. Rather than focusing on the meaning and possibilities of sexual categories, they were trying to make sense of the categorization process itself, asking themselves questions such as: ‘How do I know if I am lesbian, homosexual, bisexual?’ and ‘How do I know if this is what I am?’ (Hoe weet je nu dat je dat bent?), as Lonneke, aged 36, put it. Contrary to older generations, tacit forms of knowledge such as ‘feeling attracted’ were not enough for younger people to conclude that their same-sex desire indicated being ‘lesbisch’ or ‘homo’ or another self-identifier. They often described not knowing if – or trusting that – their feelings of erotic desire meant they belonged to a certain category of sexual identification. Many, like Renske, aged 35, grappled with the question ‘How do I know if it is really true?’

As a consequence of the emancipation movement, same-sex sexuality became viewed as the most important part and truth of the self, something that required expression in the form of a coming-out. This demand for expression treats ‘social visibility and disclosure as the only viable means for queer people to achieve sexual self-acceptance’ (Rosenberg, 2018: 1789). It places sexual orientation at the top of the hierarchy when it comes to self-expression and identity, something Alimahomed (2010: 158) refers to as the ‘hegemonic queer coming out story’. As a consequence, one better be certain about such an important moment in one’s life. Younger people, therefore, wanted to be sure their feelings were authentic before using labels: they needed confirmation of the realness of their feelings. This confirmation was an important precondition for telling others, because younger participants often experienced this act of telling as irreversible. For example, Esther (aged 40) explained: ‘When you tell your parents, it means it’s really true’ (als je het tegen je ouders zegt is het echt zo). She felt that the act of coming out of the closet as a lesbian was a definitive action, one that meant she could not change her mind or date men: ‘I could not do that to my parents’. Lonneke (aged 36) also expressed concern about telling the wrong story: ‘Am I not going to tell something now that I have to reconsider later? I want to do it right and carefully’, she explained. This is an interesting concern: for many younger people, sexual orientation is something to discover, and once it has been realized it becomes an unchangeable fact. Coming out was considered the end goal of a trajectory of ‘finding oneself’.

Many confirmed the authenticity of their desire by listening to other people’s stories and experiences through media. Renske (aged 35), for instance, recalled how she had found a helpful video on YouTube after she searched for ‘How do you know you are a lesbian?’ She felt relieved when the person in the video said: ‘If you're wondering if you're a lesbian and you click on this video, then you're probably just a lesbian’. This answer made Renske believe her feelings, in her words, were ‘really there’. Hearing other people’s stories and discovering similarities with their own helped them to trust their feelings were real, and thus convinced them they could use sexual categories legitimately.

Another way for people to confirm the realness of their feelings was through a sexual experience. Alma (aged 32) was not convinced her interest in women was authentic until she kissed a woman:

Finally the moment came that I could say: ‘It’s really true that I like women [ik val echt op vrouwen] because I kissed a woman and I really liked it, so I really like women [dus ik val echt op vrouwen]’. That was such a relief.

Similar to Alma, Renske (aged 35) also felt more certain about the realness of her sexual desire once she had a girlfriend, as she said: ‘It had been hanging in the air for a long time, so to speak, that I thought I liked women. […] Now I have a relationship with a woman, and now I can tell people’. For many, the experience of desire alone was not enough to know this desire was ‘real’; experiencing same-sex attraction was only considered to have meaning after such feelings were acted upon. Since the majority of our younger participants consisted of women, more research is needed to draw conclusions about young men’s experiences. It is possible that young women question the ‘realness’ of their sexual desires more than young men do, since physical closeness between women, in general, is more accepted in Dutch society than close physical contact between men (Huijnk, 2022).

For many, the hegemonic queer coming-out story created a certain pressure to find out the truth of their feelings. Many younger people mentioned not wanting their sexuality to be seen as the most important part of their being, something they referred to as ‘making it a thing’ (er een ding van maken). As a consequence, rather than highlighting their sexuality by coming out and using specific labels, some wanted to remove these sexual categories altogether. 30 minutes into a conversation with Lonneke (aged 36), for instance, she had not used any categories to describe herself. When mentioning this to her, she responded, ‘I have no word that fits’. Instead, so she explained, she preferred to describe her desires or behaviour, such as ‘I like women’ or ‘I am married to a woman’. When asked why she did not like the word ‘lesbian’, she answered: ‘there is a 1970s vibe around it’. By using descriptions instead of categories, she avoided what she considered a tightening, a securing, of sexual identity as the main characteristic of her personality. It is interesting in this regard that many of the younger generation (both men and women) distanced themselves from organizations that had been so important to the older generations (such as the COC or feminist movement) because, as Renske (aged 35) said, otherwise ‘it becomes your entire identity’. The act of not using certain categories was considered as similar to the feminist movement, as Alma (aged 32) explained: ‘Someone has to be the first to burn a bra. Someone has to be the first who doesn’t call themselves a lesbian’. Alma referred to the famous burning of bras by the feminist group Dolle Mina on 23 January 1970.

Tom (aged 29) also did not want his sexual desires to lead to assumptions about his personality, interests, or opinions. During our conversation, he remarked: ‘Sometimes I feel more homo in these times than I’m used to’. When asked to explain, he mentioned feeling frustrated when people asked him what his opinion is on Gay Pride. ‘I don’t have to think anything of gay pride’, he responded slightly annoyed; ‘It [the question] implies: “You are homo, so you probably think this or that.”’ According to Tom, his sexuality should not be a reason for others to assume he has certain opinions or interests. These experiences of the younger generation are understood by some authors as a ‘post-gay’ phenomenon, emerging in reaction to the relative normalization of homosexuality (Ghaziani, 2011). According to Van Lisdonk, Nencel, and Keuzenkamp (2018), this is not exactly the case in the Netherlands because most scholarship on the post-gay phenomenon refers to a small urban cosmopolitan group. According to them, it is more related to the Dutch ideology of normality, in combination with the heteronormative context and the hegemonic hetero-homo binary. We do not argue with this interpretation of these features of Dutch society. Yet, we wonder whether the tendency of feminist analysis to focus on power and the suppressive effects of patriarchal heterosexuality does not limit the scope of the analysis as it locks people’s experiences and realities into binary oppositions of normative and anti-normative (Wiegman and Wilson, 2015). As our data suggests, there is more variance. Therefore, we pose a different question: How to account for the variety of perceptions and experiences over time, beyond analyses of suppression and agency?

Conclusion

As the emancipation movement led to the recognition of queer sexualities, the classification of sexual desire and the expectation of coming-out caused sexuality to become a hegemonic aspect of the self, something a significant group of the participants found restricting rather than liberating. This articulates a paradox of emancipation, particularly for many in the younger generation: on the one hand they experienced an increased need for diversity and inclusion and sought it through the expansion of categories while, on the other hand, they often felt that the categories fixate sexuality as an important part of the self, which they experienced as problematic. Also, while the idea of sexual desire as an identity became common sense, people of all generations struggled with this way of representing and categorizing their sexuality. Tim (aged 64), for instance, said that he would not call himself ‘homo’, because ‘I am the total of everything’, adding a list of his profession, hobbies, sports, etc. Some people emphasized the unimportance of sexuality and expressed a desire for it to be seen as irrelevant by others. Mara (aged 58), for instance, explained: ‘My identity is who I am, and not the lesbian part of it’ (en niet het lesbische onderdeel erin). The difference between the older two generations and the younger one was that the former did not question their feelings and tacit knowledge, while the younger ones examined their feelings of same-sex desire.

In the Netherlands, and elsewhere, the meaning of the term ‘homosexual’ reflects a particular development from being a category of crime, then sin, and then disease to a category of personal identification over the last centuries (Van der Meer, 1997). These shifts are often understood as a linear line of progression towards acceptance and liberation in the context of heteronormativity. Following this line of thinking, the current era reflects a certain completion as sexual diversity has become a common good, however contested at times. In the narrative of liberation, there is an implicit understanding of same-sex sexual identity as a given, a quality that needs to be recognized and embraced. Yet, just as the term homosexual has a history, the notion of sexual identity has its own chronicle. It may be less dramatic in its evolution, but it signals that sexual identity is more inconsistent than it may appear at first sight. The idea of sexual identity as a natural quality is not only a recent invention, as Foucault has shown, but it also continues to evolve. Same-sex desires have always existed, yet how they are translated into cultural understandings is variable, both across cultures and across generations.

While drawing conclusions from our small and explorative study is difficult, people’s experiences show interesting shifts. First, the lack of language on sexuality made people from the oldest generation rely on tacit forms of knowledge. Then, the emancipation movements generated a discourse on sexuality, and through this sexuality became connected to the idea of telling the ‘truth about oneself’ through which classifying became important. The expansion of sexual categories subsequently generated a paradox: the availability of various classifications also implies the need to accurately match. Yet, all sexual biographies across the generations show one clear characteristic: sexual desires cannot easily be disciplined, neither by heteronormativity nor by a discourse implying certain forms of self-actualization. The articulation of sexual identity was, and continues to be, a response to how ‘sexuality’ has discursively been made a central aspect of personhood. Yet, people’s lived reality is messier than any terminology can capture.