Joker exists outside of society and social mores. He is chaos personified, he is devoutly antisocial and an anarchist in the purest sense. Social issues - like homophobia, racism, sexism, pedophilia, classism - ALL that stuff - don't have any *personal* meaning to him. He's outside of it. Beyond it. I don't think he really has any personal and genuine opinion on any of that stuff. As an absolute anarchist, it simply has no meaning for him or for the way he positions himself in the world. He UNDERSTANDS these concepts, and he understands what they mean to the rest of the world and the power they hold. So he also understands how their use and abuse can impact on society and on individuals. If they mean anything to him it is only within the context of being able to exploit them to hurt others, to make a point or to derive personal satisfaction from furthering chaos, to use them to gain his own ends. If anything, these concepts and the resulting issues that come from them only confirm to him what a ridiculous joke the world is. I don't think anyone can accurately say Joker is racist or Joker is sexist or anything else along those lines. That sort of emotional relationship to other human beings is beyond him. Even when he rejects working with Nazis because he's an American feels more like an extended gag to me; a - haha, it's so funny, Joker who kills children without a second thought won't work with Nazis because he's a patriot! How ridiculous! - kinda thing. You can say Joker can express a racist thought - because it might suit his purpose or situation at the time, because he knows the way people will react will make him laugh, because it proves something to him - but that he actually HOLDS that opinion himself is something that I think just isn't possible for him. He's too beyond normal human interaction and perception. Heck, he's not even a misanthrope. By the same token, I don't feel Joker falls within the popular trifecta of human sexuality - homosexual, heterosexual and bisexual. Again, sexuality is something he exists beyond. To define our sexuality is a very human compulsion. Joker has no such need. The need to ascribe ourselves a sexuality is a very pedestrian thing. Joker is anything but pedestrian. If I was obliged to give him a sexuality, I'd say he's a curious blend of the asexual and the pansexual, but even that is defining it a little too much. Traditional sex holds little, if any, interest to him. But he is quite a sensualist and seems to get his jollies from a wide range of stimuli - everything from hurting people, to messing with people's heads, taunting Batman, to fussiness with his appearance, etc, etc. A lot of people cite his behaviour towards Batman as proof of his homosexuality. I feel this is a very, very shallow understanding of Joker's character. That places him within the realm of human feeling and identity, which, as I've already stated a few times, he is simply beyond. I do think Joker gets a sort of sexual gratification from his dealings with batman. T think he's enamoured of the Dark Knight because of the fun he gets from it - because both he and Batman were created from chaos and Batman went on to fight it while Joker seeks to further it, making them two sides of the same coin. But you can't relate that to the way you and I understand that sort of thing, because this is The Joker we're speaking of. He has rampant emotions but you could not accurately describe them as human emotions. Joker is also a performer. He understands, again, how our rigidily gender-role defined society reacts alarmed to anything slightly beyond it. Hence the occasional pair of highheels, the lipstick, long fingernails, the effeminity. He loves to fuck with our heads this way. It's all part of his costume, his role. He doesn't care if we think he's gay. If we think he's straight. How very common such ponderings are! But he loves that we're thinking of him at all. And he loves that it scandalises, the sight of a six foot, five inches tall man with bone white skin and green hair who delights in murder and chaos, would adopt the pretence of ambiguous sexuality. This is one more way he reminds us how outside of the norm he is. (be still my beating heart) Additionally, given his deep comprehension and understanding of the human psyche, he fully knows how irritating and infuriating such flamboyantly sexualised behaviour by him would be for Batman - epsecially when it's towards Batman. This is not because Batman is a homophobe. It's because Batman HATES Joker and being forced to cope with any sexualised behaviour from Joker would be utterly repugnant to him. It's all just part of his game. That's not to say I don't think he'd get it on with boys, if the fancy struck him. I do. But it's not really about finding men or women sexually attractive, it's about HIM and however the person in question is responding to HIM. Harley Quinn, furthermore, is not proof of his heterosexuality, by a long shot. Again, I say The Joker has NO real sexuality. All she proves is that he is capable of positioning himself with some sort of sexualised framework or can relate sexually to others...well... in a very unique sense... For example, in Yochelson & Samenow: Errors of Thoughts of the Psychopath, the following is stated: 13)"Sexuality": There is no true exchange of affection or sensuality. If he sleeps with a woman, it's to assert his power on her and on the men who wants her. I think this gives us an insight into Joker's sexuality, to use the colloquial term as the most convenient descriptor, in general. I think he gets off on the things he does - like how he has spoken of murder and inciting fear and terror as being like sex, that the responses he gets from people are a turn-on to him. It is HIS power he revels in. Everything he does, ultimately, is self-focused. I think even the gratification he gets from messing with Batman is ultimately not really about Batman at all, but about how clever and fabulous he is. Likewise in his sex life with Harley. I think Joker can understand and appreciate Harley as a beautiful young girl, but not that he really RELATES to that, or gets a personal kick out of it the same way it would be for us to admire a beautiful person. No, what gets him off is that this beautiful young girl is committed to and obsessed with HIM and is under his thumb. I think many things are sexualised for The Joker, the way he interacts with the key people in his life - Batman and Harley, for example - and a lot of the things he does. At the same time sex is not a primary (or secondary, or tertiary, etc) motivation or goal of his, or even really exists within his psyche. He doesn't do the things he does for sexual gratifiaction. I think it's usually the furthest thing from his mind. But that might be a little bonus inclusion. Ultimately, Joker is really getting off on himself. I do think that the more time that passes with Harley the more an interest in 'traditional' sex is awakened, but that this is very much resisted and ultimately is still about his own gratification - which I also think is key to Harley's OWN gratification (ie, her pleasure is tied up in meeting his needs and she gets a great deal of satisfaction out of it). I think their relationship is highly sexualised and sexual play happens between them in many, many different ways. It's kinky and it's alternative, but again it's not a typical BDSM relationship too - I don't see any formalised whips and chains and needles and paddles and such. Straight out D/s is about the dynamic rather than the acts and again, studded leather, a flogger and 'call me Master' are far too pedestrian for Joker. Think, instead, the pleasure that can be derived from the careful, devoted mending of a tear in your beloved's coat, or of having your lover's initials carved into the skin between your breasts. Or of doing something disgusting because your lover asks it of you. But this is a topic for a whole other long winded rant. I think Joker is utterly and absolutely capable of very sensual behaviour. I think he can be very charming, and very seductive. He understands humanity and he is adept at analysing people psychologically. I think he can put on behaviour like a suit, when he wants to. And, when I say 'seductive', I don't mean just in the sexual sense by any means. Most sociopaths are incredibly charismatic and seductive and this is true of The Joker. He could charm anyone, when in the mood to do so (remembering of course his moods are flighty, at best, and he does so love to instill fear and horror). What works against him is his reputation and recognisability. But, give him enough time and I think he'd fool just about anyone with a few choice words and adopted behaviours (apart from those who've had consistent intimate experience with him, like the JLA. Though I'd love to see him work his magic on the less experienced amongst them sometime!). For exmaple in It's Joker Time, he seduces a producer with minimal effort. As he says 'I could do anything... that's what makes me so fascinating'. Part of his seductiveness is in his danger, in his extremeness, in the fact he is so very beyond everything we associate as proper human behaviour. Again, Joker might not have any real interest in sexual play, but he understands its uses and usefulness and is able to mimick it when needed... brilliantly, when required. This is really well depicted in It's Joker Time #3 - he has seduced the female producer exactly the way she wanted to be seduced. He also has the male show host down on his knees licking his shoes, a scene which struck me as easily sexual as sweeping the producer into his arms for an engulfing kiss. In both instances Joker's dialogue, internal or otherwise, reveals it's the power in those moments that are working for him. That's what's titillating him, as opposed to the people he's interacting with. Joker, again, *understands* beauty and sexual attractiveness and what they mean to the world at large - he understands their power and understands how he can use and exploit it. But to relate to it in a real sense is not something that is possible for him. I think possibly he finds an odd beauty in the most wretched and vile things because that, to him, is truth. He might also look at a beautiful woman and appreciate her because he comprehends what impact that probably has on her life and how one little thing - like slicing her nose off, for example - would change that completely, and given how much she probably relates to her own beauty how that would devastate her, possibly to the collapse of her entire life. And that would be funny to him. Ultimately, Joker understands everything is 'meaningless'. One great scene in the original Batman film is Joker destorying priceless works of art. It's hilarious because it's so bloody blasphemous. We can laugh because we know it was a film and they were reproductions. In reality the world would fall to its knees in response, horror-struck at having lost something we have placed so much value on. And Joker understands that these things - ALL things like this in the world - only have meaning because we ascribe to it meaning. A big part of what Joker does is trying to point that out to us. The meaning we attribute allows us to make sense of life. Joker is trying to point out that this meaning is an illusion. Life doesn't make sense. And that is the joke. BACK
	Harley's Haven is dedicated to the memory of Heath Ledger, an actor who devoted much to the role of The Joker.