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lgbt-history-archive:

“I’m not a woman / I’m not a man / I am something that you’ll never understand.” – Prince, “I Would Die 4 U” (1984)
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Picture: Prince, Metro, Boston, Massachusetts, March 17, 1981. Photo by Steve Stone, c/o The History Project.
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Prince Rogers Nelson, who died one year ago today, was a cultural icon who, as Chelsea Reynolds wrote, “tried to help us understand the differences between identity (how we think of ourselves), behavior (what we do), and perception (how others think of us).”
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Prince, in short, “dismantled and queered what contemporary culture has tried to bracket.”
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Much has been made of an interview Prince gave to The New Yorker in November 2008 in which he discussed becoming a Jehovah’s Witness; specifically, much has been made of the following:
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“When asked about his perspective on social issues—gay marriage, abortion—Prince tapped his Bible and said, ‘God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, ‘Enough.’”
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Despite Prince’s indisputable contributions to the queering of society, this quote continues to haunt his legacy.
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“What might strike audiences as contradictory stances on issues of sexual expression and marriage equality,” Reynolds explains, “may well be understood within their larger discursive context. Prince wasn’t merely a voice for marginalized or queer communities.
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“He reigned at the confluence of a culture tipping away from disco toward hip hop. The same culture that told Mariah Carey not to announce her blackness…that demanded Michael Jackson defend his vitiligo…that produced the Down Low and expectations for rigid heterosexuality among black men in the church.
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“We should agree on one thing: Identity is unstable. It is myriad. There is little logic in absolutist binaries. No straight, no gay. No black, no white. No woman, no man. No ideal Christian, no ideal atheist. At least not singularly. This is the gospel of Prince circa 1982:
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‘I just can’t believe all the things people say / Controversy.
Am I black or white, am I straight or gay? / Controversy.
Do I believe in God, do I believe in me? / Controversy.’” #HavePrideInHistory #Prince

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Prince’s secretary came to me shortly before the MTV Music Awards and said something to the effect of, “You’re not going to believe this…. You’d better sit down. ” And she proceeded to tell me that Prince wanted a costume with the BUTT OUT.
Ummmmm, OKayyyyy. What? How on earth would we do this? What fabric? How much “exposure”? Would his butt skin really be bare? Does he have a hairy butt? Or WHAT? Since there was no time to waste, he had said that he wanted to see sketches ASAP in his office. I set in to sketch. I finished within a couple of hours. I headed to his office, white knuckling it down the hall.
It was just him and me…. Looking at the sketch… So quietly….I cleared my throat and said, “Prince, I’ve done two versions for you, one with more exposure, and one with less.” The surreality of that moment cannot be over-stated here. Without a word, he took a pencil and put an X thru the version with “more exposure”.

Stacia Lang (Prince’s costume designer)
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Can we have both reference for God and fulfill the rawest of carnal desires? Can the spiritual imperative and the lustful urge coexist in one soul? Prince has much to say on the issues of the irrepressible sexual impulse and our innate spiritual needs, as well as apathy in the face of apocalypse.

“I Would Die 4 U: How Prince Became an Icon,” Touré (via oncebittentwiceborn)