Rachel Jermansky Sex Relationships and Communication COMM 1131 01 CRN 36714 Midterm Review eval 1 Page Number 1 one question Performativity 1 How through the repeated use of verbal and nonverbal symbols associated with conventional ways of recognizing and talking about identities such as gender and sexuality we produce those identity categories 2 We are continuously engaged in enacting and citing with our words and bodies the existing norms and conventions of our surrounding social world a Doing so makes our behaviors appear real natural normal and inevitable b We perform our gender and sexual identities but not in exactly the same way others do One Question Queer Theory The articulation of sexual identities is not a relatively simple process of assigning labels to phenomena that have always been present but could not be openly recognized without names by which to define them 1 A critical view of identities acknowledges the role of history and simultaneously reinforces the importance of human agency 2 Queer a An epithet b Claimed as a proud avowal of identity expressing a range of sexualities an appropriated term whatever is at odds with the normal the legitimate the dominant There is nothing in c particular to which it necessarily refers It is an identity without an essence Halperin 1995 p 62 3 A queer theoretical perspective views identities as fluid paradoxical political multiple a Push our thinking about sexuality the duality of homo hetero invite complexity of our sexualities b Heteronormativity like heterosexism refers to the beliefs and practices that privilege heterosexuals and heterosexuality i Exposes heterosexuality as a social institution that sanctions heterosexuality as the only normal natural expression of sexuality ii Heterosexuality unlike any other sexual orientation is assumed to need no explanation c Critique accused of primarily representing middle class white gay male perspective Chpt 1 History of Heterosexuality Foucault Ancient Greek Free Men and Their Desires One Question 1 Foucault projecting our heterosexual and homosexual categories on the past of Ancient Greece is dangerous 2 Projecting our terms and meaning on past societies sexual categories unconsciously and unjustifiably affirms the similarity of the past and present which prevents readers from perceiving dissimilarity and change both in the past and in the present a We need to avoid a presentist bias viewing sexualities and pleasures of the past from our particular position in the present b Foucault s warnings testify to the continuing enormous power of our present dominant concepts of sexuality that we are deeply embedded in a living institutionalized heterosexual homosexual distinction eval 2 Chpt 2 Narrative Fictions 1 identities are troubling are they worthwhile What do identities do accomplish one question a provide bedrock for our most fundamental being and most prized social belongings b flashpoints fro some of the most poisoned and violent disputes ethnic cleansing c confirm and promote common human interests d challenge frozen hierarchies of power e argue for autonomy diversity choice 2 Paradox 1 Sexual identity affirms fixity and uniformity while confirming the reality of unfixity and difference One Question practices and codes of behavior identities a Our identification s place us securely in recognized discourses embodying assumptions beliefs b AND identity formation inherently have possibility and many sidededness in them especially w sexual i Include diverse desires needs passions of individuals and the often contradictory pull of diverse social obligations and belongings 1 Ethnic race v sexual identity 2 Class community v political pulls ii Fear uncertainty abyss unknown threat of dissolution of unfixed identity try to fix our identities by asserting that what we are now is what we have really truly always been if only we had known 3 Paradox 2 Identities are deeply personal but tell us about multiple social belongings one question a Cultures depend on members having a secure sense of self and a placing in the order of things hierarchy b Self identity sexual identity is NOT given as a result of the continuities of an individual life or the fixity and force of his or her desires it has to be worked on invented and reinvented PERFORMATIVITY in accord with changing rhythms demands opportunities and closures of a complex world depends on the effectiveness of the biographical narratives we construct for us in a turbulent world on our ability to keep a particular narrative going HOW WE SOCIALLY CONSTRUCT OUR WORLDS We apparently need an essential self to provide a grounding for our actions to ward off existential fear and anxiety to provide a springboard for action a Body is subject to the power of culture becom ing increasingly socialized and drawn into the reflexive organization of social life Giddens i Body as source of biographical continuity ii Body is site of for the inscription of difference the battleground for conflicting cultural meanings marked by gender race age subject to pleasure and pain and ultimate extinction b Sexual identity involves a perpetual invention and reinvention but fought over and contested by eval 3 2 Paradox 3 Sexual Identities are simultaneously historical and contingent rife w relations of power one many discourses question a Sexual identities are not simple expressions of bodily truth they are historical phenomena constantly changing a feminist and lesbian gay scholar contribution b Question the taken for granted natural and inevitable categories demonstrating the historicity and ephemerality of these categories and recognizing the power of such categories i the dominant or hegemonic form of any social position becomes the given the taken for granted part of the air we breathe from which everything else becomes a deviation at best or a perversion at worst identities 1 increasingly see sexuality as a spectrum along which lie many potential desires and 2 obscures the fact that historically sexual identities have been organized into violent hierarchies where some position are marked as superior more natural healthier more true to the body than others 3 the social constructed shaping of the homosexual over the past century in Western countries has been an act of power whose effect intended or not has been to reinforce the normality of heterosexuality a an importance of the category homosexual comes from its potential for giving whoever wields it a