“Insert something cool about why we see sexuality as naturally occurring but gender as socially constructed.” In this paper, I am going to demonstrate why Jane Ward argues in her book, Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, that sex between straight white men is not gay, and to deconstruct the discourses that not only allow for this to occur, but shape the way this sex is approached and interpreted.
To do that, there is some background knowledge needed. Queer readings are essential to the basis of Ward’s study, and queer theory sits at the heart of her argument. To better understand that way queer theory is structured, it’s important to note the differences between the heterosexual imaginary, heteronormativity, heterogenders, and supplementarity. …show more content…
It is not a commentary on sexuality, but gender. It reinforces the gender binary that patriarchal sexuality essentially demands. With heterogenders, you cannot have one without the other, because each gender is defined by its opposite. It is important to note that they’re set up as distinct opposites. They’re mutually constituted. What is female is strictly not male, and vice versa. This concept is of great value to queer theory because it is the root. Queer theory always sees a way of thinking beyond the binary, and this theory of heterogender reinforces the idea that there is a legitimate and valuable system that exists in the first place and it is necessary to …show more content…
The idea that heterosexuality is the absolute absence of homosexuality is one example. Derrida would say that these binary oppositions are defined through the way meaning is made, and the labels and meaning we give to the oppositions. All of these terms that I have introduced have a couple of things in common, one of the most notable being that they are the roots of what queer theory attempts to deconstruct. Queer theory is essentially the study of how sexual identity and acts are constructed and then put into categories, such as normal or deviant, based on how they relate to the way gender and sexual identity are conflated. These terms I’ve introduced are all ways to describe the social space of sexuality in our culture, and they are the theories that queer theorists have given power to and then used to deconstruct heterosexual and homosexual relationships in our world. Supplementarity asserts that an understanding of heterosexuality and homosexuality is not about what is absent. It’s about what is present, but not seen: it’s studying the center and the root as well as the edges of this
To do that, there is some background knowledge needed. Queer readings are essential to the basis of Ward’s study, and queer theory sits at the heart of her argument. To better understand that way queer theory is structured, it’s important to note the differences between the heterosexual imaginary, heteronormativity, heterogenders, and supplementarity. …show more content…
It is not a commentary on sexuality, but gender. It reinforces the gender binary that patriarchal sexuality essentially demands. With heterogenders, you cannot have one without the other, because each gender is defined by its opposite. It is important to note that they’re set up as distinct opposites. They’re mutually constituted. What is female is strictly not male, and vice versa. This concept is of great value to queer theory because it is the root. Queer theory always sees a way of thinking beyond the binary, and this theory of heterogender reinforces the idea that there is a legitimate and valuable system that exists in the first place and it is necessary to …show more content…
The idea that heterosexuality is the absolute absence of homosexuality is one example. Derrida would say that these binary oppositions are defined through the way meaning is made, and the labels and meaning we give to the oppositions. All of these terms that I have introduced have a couple of things in common, one of the most notable being that they are the roots of what queer theory attempts to deconstruct. Queer theory is essentially the study of how sexual identity and acts are constructed and then put into categories, such as normal or deviant, based on how they relate to the way gender and sexual identity are conflated. These terms I’ve introduced are all ways to describe the social space of sexuality in our culture, and they are the theories that queer theorists have given power to and then used to deconstruct heterosexual and homosexual relationships in our world. Supplementarity asserts that an understanding of heterosexuality and homosexuality is not about what is absent. It’s about what is present, but not seen: it’s studying the center and the root as well as the edges of this