Close Reading for Argument: Homophobia as a prevailing force The question of identity is at once fundamentally urgent and conventionally trivialized in the human experience. Little thought is often appropriated towards considering all the intrinsic complexities and deviations that comprise the individual self. Rather, society has gravitated towards a culture of identity consumerism, in which we are increasingly comfortable with adopting pre-conceived labels, often desperate to conform to arbitrary designations. There is a certain security in knowing that we are a preps, jocks, or greasers – we willingly accept labels in order to circumvent the need to acknowledge or understand our own egocentricities. Of course, this determination does not …show more content…
She is deeply concerned with questions about the future “If the rendering visible of lesbian/gay identity now presupposes a set of exclusions, then perhaps part of what is necessarily excluded is the future uses of the sign.” (311) and with themes of repetition and performance “but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original;” (313). The present state of being seems to be of no concern to Butler, who is more concerned with questions of what will become, what was, and the significance of these processes. By understanding this, we can begin to address the homophobic discourse for what it really is: not as a descriptor, (as in homophobe) but as an actor of consequence that prompts the investigation of issues in characterizing sexuality. Again, Butler isn’t explicitly branding any person or group of people with a homophobic identity label. She does however use it as an agent: in reference even to the historical event of Helm and Mapplethorpe, homophobia is more significant in catalyzing a public preconception of homosexuality (much to Butler’s chagrin) and reducing the visibility of lesbianism. “Lesbianism is not explicitly prohibited in part because it has not even made its way into the thinkable, the imaginable…” (312). Homophobia is also understood to be a political tool in Butler’s sense, and in that way is something akin to the same homosexual agenda which seeks to dispel gender myths, “there remains a political imperative to use these necessary errors or category mistakes, as it were…to rally and represent an oppressed political constituency” (309) although it’s intent is to promote them. “…’lesbians’ and ‘gay men’ have been traditionally designated as impossible identities…” (309). Butler additionally proposes that there is no true rendition of sexuality, that it is a concept which exists outside the confines of any standard. Each valence of sexuality is
...ted her case coherently and effectively, she did not address all the concerns surrounding the issue of gender roles and homophobia. For instance, there is an argument for both homophobia and gender roles having a biblical origin, and the author did not mention it. Because of this, if the reader was a homophobic, and he or she deeply rooted his or her views in the bible, he or she would probably not be persuaded by Vàzquez’s essay. However, like a lawyer, covering the opposing side could prove destructive to his or her argument. Carmen Vàzquez’s goal was to show the reader that social reform was the only clear option and her essay accomplishes this coherently and effectively.
Andrew Sullivan, author of, What is a Homosexual, portrays his experience growing up; trapped in his own identity. He paints a detailed portrait of the hardships caused by being homosexual. He explains the struggle of self-concealment, and how doing so is vital for social acceptation. The ability to hide one’s true feelings make it easier to be “invisible” as Sullivan puts it. “The experience of growing up profoundly different in emotional and psychological makeup inevitably alters a person’s self-perception.”(Sullivan)This statement marks one of the many reasons for this concealment. The main idea of this passage is to reflect on those hardships, and too understand true self-conscious difference. Being different can cause identity problems, especially in adolescents.
In an effort to legitimize all subcategories of sexuality considered deviant of heterosexual normatively, queer theory acknowledges nontraditional sexual identities by rejecting the rigid notion of stabilized sexuality. It shares the ideals of gender theory, applying to sexuality the idea that gender is a performative adherence to capitalist structures that inform society of what it means to be male, female, gay, and straight. An individual’s conformity to sexual or gendered expectations indicates both perpetration and victimization of the systemic oppression laid down by patriarchal foundations in the interest of maintaining power within a small group of people. Seeking to deconstruct the absolute nature of binary opposition, queer theory highlights and celebrates literary examples of gray areas specifically regarding sexual orientation, and questions those which solidify heterosexuality as the “norm”, and anything outside of it as the “other”.
In a structured society, as one we’ve continued to create today, has raised concerns over the way society uses the term queer. Queer was a term used to describe “odd” “peculiar” or “strange” beings or things alike, but over the centuries societies began to adapt and incorporate the term into their vocabulary. Many authors such as Natalie Kouri-Towe, Siobhan B. Somerville, and Nikki Sullivan have distinct ways of describing the way the word queer has been shaped over the years and how society has viewed it as a whole. In effect, to talk about the term queer one must understand the hardship and struggle someone from the community faces in their everyday lives. My goal in this paper is to bring attention to the history of the term queer, how different
The queer theory considers sexuality as always being modified, passing boundaries and normality. In Kissing Jessica Stein, Jessica finds herself seduced by temptation and wonders if she could find all those things she looks for in a partner: a friend, a protector, someone to be there when she’s sick, in a woman. Paula C. Rust suggests that the most common change among peoples, is their own position on the sexual landscape. Socially constructed by dialogue, interaction, our environment creates a universal stigma of sexual normality. In Kissing Jessica Stein there is a scene in which Helen and Jessica sit at a bar when approached by two men to whom they prose the question: Can a woman who’s only been with men be attracted to women? Directly relating to the concept of sexual fluidity – Could Jessica’s sexual landscape change? Based on how we see that she falls in love with a woman, the answer is yes. Sexual desire goes beyond genetic attraction, but extends to emotion fancy and lust. As a result of Jessica’s ability to reject her tradition sexual orientation, her sexual landscape is
In my opinion, I think Canada has come a long way in regards to dealing with homophobia since marriage equality was only legalized in 2005, but it is still a rampant issue. Although Canada is considered a very nice and welcoming country, it still has a lot of issues and problems that is unbeknowst to much of the world. In the city of Toronto which seems like a widely accepting and welcoming place, a LGBT business owner was startled when he discovered homophobic graffiti on the garage of his Toronto home. The message reads, "Toronto hates queers cuz your a biggot," and was reported amongst dozens of other hateful comments that were directed towards the LGBTQ community in the city. Although the victim contacted the police to further investigate
“Does the text have a political purpose? Can we identify the lesbianism of the authors and characters? What do these writers and characters say about lesbianism and more particularly their own lesbianism?” (Farwell 11)
Butler expresses “I believe that whatever differences exist within the international gay and lesbian community, and there are many, we all have some notion of what it is to have lost somebody (114). This is such an important statement because Butler points out that everyone knows what it is like
The male heterosexual identity not only involves homophobia but supports hatred and fear of homosexual men. This in turn leads to negotiating homosexuality from society, hiding it, so framing it as deviant and something to be avoided. Due to the taken for granted nature of hegemonic masculinity, its use as a reinforcement tool is successful, in that it is apart of daily life for people despite the fact that they do not realize the impact that it has on
We live in a world where a 21st century woman can vote, work full time, and raise a family on her own terms. Woman can choose when to have children, if they want to achieve a higher education, and obtain jobs that women in the 60’s only dreamt about. Most of these accomplishments were brought on by the Women’s Movement of the 1960’s. They brought up conventional thoughts and ideas that changed the course of history. However, in their quest for women’s rights and equality amongst men, there were some that were left out of the mass movement. Lesbians of the 1960’s were considered to be social pariahs by the Woman’s Movement of the 1960’s and not to be connected with. By being the outcasts, Lesbians created and founded their own movement that focused on not only Women’s Rights, but Gay Women’s rights as well. This movement was just as controversial if not more as the Women’s Movement of the time, but made just as big of an impact.
This quote addresses directly the primary difficulty of the issue. The terms gay and lesbian are useful in literature in that they allow a group of people who have been marginalised and even persecuted to become visible. They enable a way of life and a set of identities, harmonious or conflicting, to be presented, to be questioned, to be understood and accepted. As categories they create ‘space’ in which there may develop a more evolved understanding of texts and they also create a genre within which many lesbian and gay writers are comfortable with being placed. A gendered reading of a text can reveal undercurrents and depths which might otherwise not be apparent. These categories also make ‘space’ for the author within the text which leads to a closer tie between the author and the reader in the reading process.
Furthermore, since queer and homosexual are only categories that emerge when compared to the dominant power matrix, or by failing to repeat heteronormative performativity, the queer identity is inherently a deconstruction of the heteronormative identity. Queer culture and art draws heavy emphasis on this disassembly of societal norms, such as Butler’s highlight of drag queens, who perform shows that satirize white ideas of femininity to absurd degrees (Butler 22). But Butler importantly acknowledges the failure of “queer” as an umbrella in racial minority communities and in its inability to coalesce the LGBTQ+ community because of how “queer” must function in relation to “other modalities of power,” and each separate minority has a different relationship to dominant power structures. Calls for intersectionality in contemporary queer theory seek to address this concern
"Queer theory" questions the fixed categories of sexual identity and the cognitive paradigms generated by normative (that is, what is considered "normal") sexual ideology. To "queer" becomes an act by which stable boundaries of sexual identity are transgressed, reversed, mimicked, or otherwise critiqued. "Queering" can be enacted on behalf of all non-normative sexualities and identities as well, all that is considered by the dominant paradigms of culture to be alien, strange, unfamiliar, transgressive, odd—in short, queer. Michel Foucault's work on sexuality anticipates and informs the Queer theoretical movement in a role similar to the way his writing on power and discourse prepared the ground for "New Historicism." Judith Butler contends that heterosexual identity long held to be a normative ground of sexuality is actually produced by the suppression of homoerotic possibility.
Baker, Jean M. How Homophobia Hurts Children: Nurturing Diversity at Home, at School, and in the Community. New York: Harrington Park, 2002. Print.
When one hears the words “LGBT” and “Homosexuality” it often conjures up a mental picture of people fighting for their rights, which were unjustly taken away or even the social emergence of gay culture in the world in the1980s and the discovery of AIDS. However, many people do not know that the history of LGBT people stretches as far back in humanity’s history, and continues in this day and age. Nevertheless, the LGBT community today faces much discrimination and adversity. Many think the problem lies within society itself, and often enough that may be the case. Society holds preconceptions and prejudice of the LGBT community, though not always due to actual hatred of the LGBT community, but rather through lack of knowledge and poor media portrayal.