Queer Theorization and Social Construction

Queer theorization

Analytical frameworks that disrupts normative binary views of gender and sexuality by examining how cultural, historical, and media texts produce normalcy and deviance identities such as Lesbians, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning (LBGTQ)

Sexuality

A historical way of perceiving , categorizing, and imagining the social relations of sexes that privileges one sexual behavior as “normal” and “natural” and others as “abnormal” and “unnatural”

Heterosexual

A word and concept, a norm and role, an individual and group identity, a behavior and feeling, and a peculiar sexual-political institution particular to the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Heterosexism

Overarching system of advantages bestowed on heterosexuals, based on the institutionalization of heterosexual norms or standards that privilege and heterosexuals and heterosexuality, and excludes the needs, concerns, cultures, and life experiences of lesbians, gay males, and bisexuals

 It is oppression by neglect, omission, erasure, and distortion

Sexual orientation

A person’s sense of identity based on romantic attraction, sexual attraction, and sexual behavior between people of the opposite sex.

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SEXUAL PRACTICES

Discourse Ideas Structures Cultural

Practices

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF HETEROSEXUALITY

 BEFORE THE HETEROSEXUALITY CONCEPT

 From 1820-1860, the word “heterosexual” did not exist

 Middle-class White Americas idealized a True Womanhood, True

Manhood, and True Love, all characterized by purity

 Purity was the freedom from sexuality

 True Love was fine romance with no lascivious kisses

 Early Victorian True Love:

 proper procreation, and

 marriage—people of this era were procreators

 True Women were defined by their distance from lust

Different-sex attraction was commonplace and

encouraged for procreation

 Legitimate natural desire was for procreation and proper

“manhood” or “womanhood”

 The human body was thought of as a means toward

procreation and production—not so much pleasure

 Human energy was to be used in producing children and in

work, not wasted in libidinous pleasures

Initial coining

German-Hungaria Journalist Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the terms

“heterosexual” and “homosexual” in 1862

Society progressed from Producers to Consumers

 The transformation of the family from producer to consumer unit

resulted in a change in family members’ relation to their bodies

 The growth of a consumer economy also fostered a new pleasure

ethic and a transformation of values

 In the late nineteenth century, the erotic became the raw material for

a new consumer culture

bodies become appealing because there is disposable money and people can dress well and seek pleasure

erotic became the new materials

bikinis become normal

Medical intepretations

doctors asking kids if theyre sexually active normalizes it

Early Sexologists and Medical dictionaries

 1923 Merriam-Webster Dictionary

 Defined heterosexuality as a “morbid sexual passion” for the opposite

sex

 1901 Dorland Medical Dictionary defined heterosexuality as an

“abnormal or perverted appetite toward the opposite sex.”

 In America Dr. James Kiernan was considered as the first to use the

concept “heterosexual” not as an exemplars of normality. He defined it

as a mental condition “psychical hermaphroditism”. Meaning inclination

to both sexes. Inclination to abnormal methods of gratification. That is

techniques to insure pleasure without procreation.

 “Heterosexuality” construction and definition focused on non-

procreative sexual pleasure

 as a deviant act

 reproductive sex was still considered the norm

1960s sexual revolutions

desire for relationship changes from desire for kids to desire for relationship. began the concept of dating

1980s highschool

“going steady” became a thing, ppl in relationships without intention of marriage

LINKING MASCULINITY AND HOMOPHOBIA

 Homophobia as a sociological construct because it defies the

central definition of “manhood”

 Masculinity is an identity that assumes changing collection of

meanings that men construct through their relationship with

themselves, with each other, and with our world

 Masculinity portrays specific identity—

 That label has contempt for anyone who seems sissy, untough,

uncool

 Emasculating masculinity is the reason that homophobia exists

 One must pursue such analysis by contextualizing masculinity