1 Page Number 1 Rachel Jermansky February 18 2014 Sex Relationships and Communication COMM 1131 01 CRN 36714 Chapter Six Notes Language Socialization and Silence in Gay Adolescence Overiew What is textmaking and how does gay adolescence discover they are gay How do they find a culture and figure out who they are Through language silence and socialization Assumptions 1 How do gay teenagers acquire the language of gay culture 1 gay culture exists 2 gay culture includes distinctive ways of talking language culture culture happens 3 through language these ways of talking are sufficiently rich and complex to justify being termed gay language rather than argot secret code or rhetorical style every culture does this not just gay culture 2 Participation in lesbian and gay centered text making in different social settings builds familiarity w the rules of lesbian and gay centered grammar and discourse 1 Such participation assumes some degree of familiarity with lesbian and gay centered 2 language and cultural practices In the absence of such information text making becomes highly dependent on situated rather than prediscursive meanings on negotiation and inference on double that is speaker as well as listener subjectivity and conditions of risk a This is especially important for young people just beginning to lay claim to lesbian or gay identities and use gay centered text making as a format for acting on those claims 3 Text making ranges from the disclosure of same sex desires to close friends or adult authority figure to the construction of silence as agemates use an individual s ambiguous sexuality as a focus for teasing and taunting how do you articulate your sexual needs in a place where your needs aren t welcome a Textual silence increased incidences of attempted suicide epidemic like reported for American teenagers struggling to come to terms with their homosexuality can t express and live identity 4 Coming to terms with homosexuality a time of loneliness and isolation and also a time of making sense of newly discovered feelings emotions and interests assembling info to help them better understand those discoveries and to locate other individuals who might share understand or not dismiss their concerns a How gay men talk about attempts to find a language through which they can describe interpret and account for the new directions now taking shape within their lives 2 3 How young gay men make sense out of a male centered sexual identity even though the details of that identity were just beginning to be disclosed How language became a resource during this process 1 Jim Encyclopedia Britannica Ann Landers public library helpful English teacher 2 Sam Brothers Consenting Adult Deathtrap found people by luck 3 Wallace Washington Post West Side Story A Chorus Line 4 Robert faggot from teammates and coach 5 Joe older woman w friends introduced to gay men 4 Charting a Path Through The Desert of Nothing 1 Life stories provide details to the importance of language and language learning for gay socialization and for the construction of gay identity during adolescence how they came to turns with their sexuality 2 Connection b w language identity and heteronormativity provides the background for the present discussion 6 Heteronormativity versus the Gay Imaginary a Heteronormativity the principles or order and control that position heterosexuality as the cornerstone of the American sex gender system and obligate the personal construction of sexuality and gender in terms of heterosexual norms heavy scripts that say this is the way the world is sexuality and gender only in terms of heterosexual norms i Assumes that there are two sexes and therefore two genders ii Requires that all discussions of gendered identity and opportunity be framed strictly in terms of this dichotomy forcing gendered actors to be labeled as either women or Men regardless of the identification that the actors may give to themselves iii An abundance of institutions conspire to give heteronormativity its natural and normal fa ade although not entirely totalizing 1 Alternative constructions of sexuality and gender are possible w n this system 2 The regulation of heteronormativity unfolds through distinctions bb w acceptable and unacceptable sex gendered identities and practices and through an ordering of the social worth of individuals on the basis of their allegiance to such distinctions depending upon sex and gender identity you will be more or less favorable 3 Hetornormormativity co occurs with and profits from the social presence of the a b c subaltern an identity in differential set apart from both the ideal and the elite the queer a unity Of shared dissent from the dominant organization of sex and gender composed of lesbian gay and other lifestyles whose icons are heavily associated by cultural outsiders with the culture of gay life politics and practices the stigmatized persons who through various means must contend with a spoiled identity as well as other stances situated on the margins of late modern society Center the way things should be have control margins liberal out there 7 Language holds a prominent place in the intersection of the hetronormative and the marginal 3 a Text making provide contexts within which heteronormative messages are produced and reproduced in everyday life providing the framework through which heteronormative messages become inscribed in remembered w in and retained beyond the textured moment b Language keeps heteronormative stances in the foreground of daily activity and keeps alternative forms of reference in the background the margins and the shadows to ensure normative assumptions become expectable reasonable and acceptable components of the local cultural inventory and that alternative stances remain less familiar more mysterious and less desirable provides a placement for how we see the world S c However language based normativity does not always disrupt the working of the personal imaginary i Individuals still construct their own sense of sexual gendered possibility and apply their own meanings to those constructions even w out support ii The pervasive presence of silence within heteronormative domains reflects and absence of articulation but not an absence of personal voice gay men are silent because they are not the standard but do have a voice d Robert s reaction to faggot diffusion of statement by acknowledging the truthfulness of their reference he was gay after all allowing