The Center Cannot Hold: Nature's Slippery...Nature

This is going to be extremely difficult to talk about, but I'm going to give it a good try. I'm sorry if this post dissolves into contradictions.

Since the entire first chapter just begs discussion of the category of queer as a category and categories in themselves, I'm going there.

So first things first, there is a basic premise in a lot of queer theory that there is actually no such thing as "queer.". This is not to say that there is no such thing as homosexuality, or homosexual acts, but it is very difficult to have a positive connection to something that is "queer". It is not an inclusive space. The "queer" is, instead, what is not; queer is negatively relational. You cannot point to the "queer" aspects of a text and say "Here it is!" Instead you point to it and say "That is not me/inside/self."

This leads me to think of the thirty pages of description of Nature's clothes. I cannot help but think that the function of this is the setting up of a category. We know what is, literally, included with nature and the things that are not on the cloak are not. Nature is creating her own category of difference so that she may point to it. The extensive use of mirrors as a figure in here (most notably at the end of the Plaint, on pages 218 and 221) seems to bring this out, as well. A reflection in a mirror is false, it is not the self, it is simply something you can base your identity on.

Nature, however, is so much more encompassing than a herd of deer and some herbs. We spend the next fifty pages discussing things that are against Nature and there is no way to discuss it all. Nature, then, is the queer. One cannot point to Nature and say "There it is."

We then have Nature doing the unnatural, which is abdicating her position as Nature. Nature goes against...Nature. She commands a return to Nature through modest sex and good deeds and then opts to leave being Nature herself.

I guess, in short, Nature is located within the category of difference, of the "unnatural," that she created. Reasonably, the narrative should fall apart here, but it does not. I'm not sure why not, but if anyone has any ideas, that would be a help.