Sartre and Homosexuality

Topic: What is wrong, according to Sartre, with a homosexual saying, "I am a homosexual"? Is Sartre distinguishing two senses of the verb "to be"? Is Sartre correct in thinking that there is always something wrong with making such a statement? Could Sartre’s claim be rephrased in a more plausible form?

Thesis: By virtue of Sartre’s logic, there is in fact always some thing wrong with a homosexual saying, "I am a homosexual." However, by allowing for two distinctions in English for the verb to be, the statement can be made more plausible to a lay person.

According to Sartre, the homosexual is talking with his friend, the "champion of sincerity, " who wants his homosexual friend to be what he is and declare his homosexuality. In Sartre’s logic, the homosexual is correct, as no person is a homosexual in the way that a "table is a table." Sartre’s argument lies within this framework. He believes that the homosexual cannot acknowledge that he is a homosexual. If the homosexual becomes "sincere", and expresses that he is a homosexual, he would be in bad faith. He would essentially agree that he is a homosexual in the same way that a book is a book. He wold be "affirming that he is a homosexual in the sense of being-in-itself, yet at the same time he would be aware that this was not, in fact, the case.
Another paradigm that we could use is the example of Ex-President Richard Nixon. Nixon’s infamous statement, "I am not a crook," is a nearly perfect example. By stating outright that he is not a crook, Nixon is actually telling the truth. He is saying that though it is true that he may have committed criminal acts, he is not a criminal. There is no deception about himself illustrated by his statement.
The fundamental opposition on which he builRAB his ontology (According to Webster, the philosophical study of the nature of being) is not that between consciousness and being, but the distinction between two regions of being, only one which can be associated with consciousness. In other worRAB, by virtue of Sartre’s simple example, he is distinguishing two senses of the verb, to be. He speaks of "being-in-itself" and ""being-for-itself", clearly differentiating between the two. Being-for-itself is only distinguished by the presence in itself of the activity we experience as consciousness. Consciousness is actually, then, the ability to actively negate. Therefore, being-in-itself is actually non-conscious being, and that being-for-itself is conscious being. Thus, we may realistically limit being-for-itself to conscious beings, namely humans.
Being-in-itself is therefore independent of any consciousness. He also comments on the absence of the no in the being-in-itself. The lack of this no disallows distinctions made from specific nonconscious items. For example, there is no allowance of the distinction between a book and a non-book. This being-in-itself then becomes a property of the object, intertwined into every atom and every smaller portion.
Being-for-itself is never there to be confronted, and for this reason is an object of self-confrontation. The for-itself is its lack of presence to itself and is present to itself as this lack, the content which consists of its own possibilities. This is essentially self-identity. For the homosexual here to say that he is a homosexual would not be in harmony with the future. This can be shown by the statement: "I am not what I am, and I am what I am not. I am not my past in the process of being it; I am my future in the process of not being it. The in-itself has no past, because the past determines what it is; the for-itself has a past, but cannot be the past because that is what it was and is no longer.
Much of the difficulty of understanding or explaining this choice of worRAB can be attributed to translation. Sartre wrote his pieces in French, a Romance language. If we look at Spanish, a very similar Romance language, we note the ease of description. In Spanish, there exist two worRAB for to be. The first, Estar, is being in the more temporal sense. It would be like being at the movies, or being dressed in something; essentially, it represents a temporary description of the subject. In contrast, there exists the verb Ser. Ser represents the more permanent aspects and qualities of the subject; for example, where a person is from, what the person may actually exist as, and so on.
Sartre is correct in his thinking. Primarily, the homosexual is not a homosexual if he affirms the statement . If he makes the statement, he then allows the comment to enter his conscious. In order to continue being a homosexual, he therefore must make a conscious effort to maintain this condition. This action of admitting the statement into his conscious forfeits his freedom to choose. If he must make an effort to be something in the Ser sense of the word, he is at that moment being something in the Estar sense of the word. He is not allowing himself to be naturally, as he presupposes the condition as permanent.
Sartre could in fact find a more agreeable way to phrase his example. Perhaps by altering his suggestion that the homosexual saying that, "I am a homosexual," he would allow the statement to be more accessible. He could rephrase it by having the homosexual say," I am a homosexual thus far in my life, however, if I wish to change, I could then, be a heterosexual or a bisexual tomorrow." This allows an "escape" clause, which qualifies the statement to be permissible on both the temporal and permanent planes.

OBJECTIONS

A simple argument which objects to all facets of this logic would state that being cannot be distinguished between the temporal and permanent. This allowance for only a permanent status of being would be best illustrated by the cliche, "Once a homosexual, always a homosexual." This damning type of logic would also be a bane to Mr. Nixon, as his criminal acts during Watergate created a criminal- forever.

COUNTER OBJECTI0NS

It could be illustrated that there in fact exists no permanent status, since the definition of temporary is a relative one. If the temporal period were, for example, to be defined as the period from the moment of birth to the moment of death, one could say that unless the homosexual commits an act of homosexuality within moments of his death, he would not actually be a homosexual. He would, in fact, have committed merely isolated homosexual acts, much as Mr. Nixon would have committed isolated criminal acts.