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The Oxford English Dictionary provides us with multiple, vague, and differing definitions of the term “queer” such as “With the: that which is queer (in various senses). Rare.” and “Strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious” (OED). I found both of those explanations of “queer” to be outdated, however, I did come across a third, more appropriate definition of this term provided by the OED: “colloquial (originally U.S.). Of a person: homosexual (frequently derogatory and offensive). In later use: denoting or relating to a sexual or gender identity that does not correspond to established ideas of sexuality and gender, especially heterosexual norms”.
During the 16th century, the word “queer” began as an adjective meaning strange or peculiar which is one of the first definitions to show up on the OED. Overtime, as gay and lesbian people began to make themselves known to society, the word “queer” developed into a derogatory word to negatively describe a non-heterosexual person. It is not until the late 1980s that “queer” transitions into a more positive description that the LGBTQ+ community embraces as their own; “By embracing a word that was used to attack or degrade, the gay community has demagnetized the strength of the word, making it a common everyday term. This lessens the effect of the word when used against them” (Johnson). Furthermore, it is important to realize that our understanding of the word “queer” today is a whole lot different than where it originated from. It became a term used against gays and lesbians because during the early and mid 1900s, society publicly consisted of heterosexuals’ relationships. When people begin to publicly announce and show their homosexuality, it is considered “strange” to the rest of the public since it is outside of their “norm”. However, it is so empowering to see this word change overtime and become a term that the LGBTQ+ community claims and is proud of given the history and denotations of the word. It shows how powerful we can be when communities come together and push back against certain outdated “norms” in our society.
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s piece “Queer and Now,” collected in her book Tendencies pushes against the dominant cultural understanding of what it means to be “queer”. Her article fights against society’s political attempt to erase the complexity of queerness. When discussing the question “What’s “queer”?,” she focuses on the Christmas season and how it is a time of year when every institution is “[lined] up with each other so neatly” and “everything means the same thing”. Furthermore, she encourages us to think about what society decides is “family” identity and then provides us with a list that contains the various elements that construct the “family” such as “surname,” “sexual dyad,” “a legal unit based on state-regulated marriage,” and “a mechanism to produce, care for, and accurate children”. I found this list to be unrepresentative of all the elements of “family” or kin because it is, like a lot of identities, one that cannot be strictly limited to specific criteria. However, society constantly continues to press these criteria’s onto identities. Immediately after her “family” example, she asks us to think about sexual identity and provides us with another list containing the various elements in our society that make up “sexual identity” such as “your biological (e.g., chromosomal) sex, male or female,” “the gender assignment of your prefered partner (supposed to be the opposite of your own),” and “your enjoyment of power in sexual relations (supposed to be low if you are female or feminine, high if male or masculine)”. Sedgwick uses these two terms and lists to emphasize the fact that society tries to organize these identities into a “seamless and univocal whole” but when doing so, they leave out important dimensions of these identities.
Sedgwick discusses “queer” as a continuum in that it is a concept that is fluid, open, and changing from one individual’s sexuality to another. She writes “one of the things that “queer” can refer to: the open mesh of possibilities, gaps, overlaps, dissonances and resonances, lapses and excesses of meaning when the constituent elements of anyone’s gender, of anyone’s sexuality aren’t made (or can’t be made) to signify monolithically”. Rather than limiting the term “queer” to a single, static, “set and stone” definition, Sedgwick invites us to think of queer as almost an adventure of discovering, claiming, and embracing our own sexuality. Further, she writes “a lot of the most exciting recent work around “queer’ spins the term outward along dimensions that can’t be subsumed under gender and sexuality at all”. The idea of “queer” opens up a universe of endless possibilities for defining and understanding one’s self.
After completing some background research on Eve Sedgwick, I found out that she discovered “queerness” in one of her essays titled “A Poem Is Being Written” where “she writes of the trauma of finding out that a beloved junior high school teacher had been arrested for a homosexual incident” (Smith). Another interesting aspect about this particular essay is that she associates the rhythm of being spanked as a child with the rhythms of poetry. Sedgwick’s states that her essay, “A Poem Is Being Written” is about the “relationship between art and sex, between poetry and those for whom spanking fantasies, or spanking behavior during sex, are part of their sex life” (Smith). I found this to be intriguing because we often do not discuss our sexual fantasies to the public nor do we associate them with aspects of literature. However, Sedgwick’s writings suggest that art, literature, sex, gender, sexual pleasures, etc. all intertwine with this multifacet, dimensional term known as “queer”.
Here are my two questions for you all:
- Do you think that it is possible for a patriarchal society to not be homophobic? If yes, why or if no, why?
- Can our society bring homophobia to an end, if our economic and political structures do not change?
- What was your definition or previous education of the term “queer” before you read the assigned readings for this week?
- If you have been taught about queer theory or “queerness” – when and where did you learn about it and how was it taught to you? If you have not previously learned about queer theory or “queerness,” why do you think it has taken until now for you to become more educated on the topic?
- Why do you think society is often uncomfortable discussing sexual pleasures, sexual fantasies, and sexual excitement?
Works Cited
Johnson, Ramon. “The Word Queer.” LiveAbout, www.liveabout.com/is-queer-a-derogatory-word-1410154.
“queer, n.2” OED Online. Oxford University Press. <https://www-oed-com.libproxy.cortland.edu/view/Entry/156235?rskey=gGK1yJ&result=1#eid>
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, “Queer and Now.” Tendencies, Routledge, 1994, pp. 1–20.
Smith, Dinitia. “’Queer Theory’ Is Entering The Literary Mainstream.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Jan. 1998, www.nytimes.com/1998/01/17/books/queer-theory-is-entering-the-literary-mainstream.html.
Skylar, thank you for your thoughtful discussion questions and your nuanced and well-researched blog article. (As an aside, I found your focus on Sedgewick’s Christmas metaphor to be particularly apt, as I spent a year living in a majority-Muslim country and have been recently reflecting on my Christmas experiences there as part of a larger conversation at my workplace about Christian normativity and Yom Kippur.) I also particularly appreciate your insights into Sedgewick’s life–in doing some background research on her, I was fascinated to learn that she helped pioneer queer theory yet got married to her college sweetheart at the age of nineteen.
I appreciate what you wrote about education on the term queer–and education on queer theory in general–because I feel like this is something that I’ve learned very little about academically, despite a personal interest. I am a bit older than most students in this class (27), and even though I grew up in a progressive area and my mom had many friends who were queer, when I was in high school, it was still very uncommon for students to identify as queer in any way. I’m not sure if I even heard the word “queer” as a reclaimed term, rather than being used as an insult, until I was in college. It has only been through moving to Ithaca and teaching in a progressive school that I finally saw young students exploring sexuality and gender identity openly, met my first trans and non-binary students, and interacted with families with queer parents. There are a few reasons why I think it took until now for me to become more educated on the topic. First and foremost, I can’t overstate the huge societal differences between when I was in high school a decade ago versus the world that my students’ experience now. When I was in high school, there were some queer celebrities, gay marriage was legalized in some states, and it was becoming more common to explore queer stories (although generally, the stories of young, white men like Kurt in Glee or the stars of the original Queer Eye for the Straight Guy) in mainstream media. Yet, explorations of queer identity were still few and far between, and fraught. One English teacher and drama club advisor had his “roommate” around for performances, but only a few seniors knew that they had lived together for ten years and had rushed to the courthouse to wed the night that New Jersey legalized gay marriage. I don’t remember reading any books featuring queer characters, or by authors that my English teachers identified as queer. I was struggling with trying to figure out my own sexuality at the time, and I remember being utterly transfixed when my English teacher showed us the film The Hours– the first cultural production that I remember watching with explicitly queer characters.
The world that we live in today is entirely different. Thanks in a large part to social media, the students that I work with have a far more open and nuanced understanding of gender and sexuality. In addition, there are greater legal protections for LGBTQ individuals, as well as more nuanced media representations. The school that I teach at in Ithaca has always been an outlier (in fact, Asia Kate Dillon of Billions, one of the first mainstream non-binary actors, is an alum and credits our school for helping them develop their identity), but I know that even in my conservative high school in NJ, it’s (pardon the term) “ok to be gay” in a way that I could only dream of in high school. At the same time, however, that we recognize queer identity, I’m not sure if the need for an intersectional queer theory that we see in Cohen has really trickled down. While my queer students often give lip service to intersectionality, I’ve been surprised that many students that I teach in classes that look at African American literature try to understand the Black experience through comparing to a queer lens–which in some ways, feels reductive. While we have made tremendous strides since I was in high school, we still do have a long way to go.
Skylar,
I will start my response by replying to your first question about if it is possible for a patriarchal society to not be homophobic. This question jumped out at me because I had never really thought too much directly about the relationship between the patriarchal society we live in in America, and the presence of homophobia in our society. I could just answer your question with a simple “yes” or “no,” but then that would still beg questions about whether or not we should be living in a patriarchal society like we do. You also then mention that economic and political structures might have to change in order to bring homophobia to an end in our society, and I must say that I think that is true. The roots of many people’s thoughts and feelings can likely be traced to our economic and political structures, so a lack of change in those structures can certainly correlate to a lack of change in people’s feelings and actions towards certain people, such as people who are gay. Circling back to your original question, I guess it is technically “possible” for a patriarchal society to not be homophobic, but I do not think that is a very genuine possibility. It seems to me that a change in the patriarchal structure of our society, along with a change in some of our political and economic structures, could certainly help to a change in the presence of homophobia.
I have more to say about your next two questions, but I will post this now and update it later to ensure I have a comment posted by class (lol).
Jacob Smith