At the height of the AIDS epidemic, a melding of revolutionary ambitions and homophobic misrepresentations give rise to the empowerment of Queer Authors to challenge and shift the heteronormative systems of society (“Queer Histories”). Leo Bersani and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick are two queer Authors who have impacted the public and academic structures of knowledge during this crisis. Examining Bersani’s “Is the Rectum a Grave?” and Sedgwick’s “Epistemology of the Closet,” both are positioned towards different audiences and found to converge and diverge from each other in the historically contingent need for justification of homosexual identity during the AIDS crisis, to the queering of social constructions for acceptance. Beginning in 1981, the
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Bersani focuses his essay to confront and “account for the murderous representations of homosexuals unleashed and ‘legitimized’ by AIDS,” resulting in him writing directly to the public to displace these false accounts (Bersani 221). This misrepresentation in the media brings a portrayal of the gay community as sexually deviant (Bersani 199). Seen in the exaggerated portrayal of promiscuity in gay bathhouses where gay men would participate in “the orgiastic behaviour of multiple partners, one after the other, where in five minutes you can have five contacts,” (Bersani 199). It is realized through Bersani’s work that the AIDS health crisis is not focused on finding a cure, but on the sexual appetite of gay men and the heterosexual moral compass in whether or not to give aid or allow the virus run its course as an eradication. Consequently, the questioning of the legitimacy of homosexuals for heterosexuals, as the heterosexual population can choose to see homosexuals as either human or human defects. Articulated by Bersani through the question, “Are there … heterosexuals who don’t awaken a passionate yearning not to share the same planet with [homosexuals]?” (Bersani 201). Thusly the homophobic misrepresentations not only question the …show more content…
Sedgwick begins by redefining the terminology of essentialist and constructivist for minoritizing and universalizing to free the cluttered terms from their past use as political party platforms (“Born this Way?”). To summarize their definitions, essentialist and constructivist must be understood as always in relation and opposition with one another as they both search for a definition to the origins of homosexuality (Sedgwick 40). Beginning with essentialist, homosexuality is viewed as biologically formed through genetic makeup, hence homosexuals are born this way (Sedgwick 42). This creates a platform for the acceptance of homosexuality as a minority group, to be viewed like other minorities in society such as racial minorities (“Born this Way?”). Looking towards its binary opposite, constructivists view homosexuality as culturally constructed (Sedgwick 41). Instead of restricting society to the binary of homosexual vs heterosexual, constructivists believe sexuality should be perceived as more fluid to include other sexualities, and as a result abolishing the binary of homosexual and heterosexual (“Born this way?”). As they both experiment with the social acceptance of other sexualities, essentialist and constructivist have now been restricted to a
Bersani focuses his essay to confront and “account for the murderous representations of homosexuals unleashed and ‘legitimized’ by AIDS,” resulting in him writing directly to the public to displace these false accounts (Bersani 221). This misrepresentation in the media brings a portrayal of the gay community as sexually deviant (Bersani 199). Seen in the exaggerated portrayal of promiscuity in gay bathhouses where gay men would participate in “the orgiastic behaviour of multiple partners, one after the other, where in five minutes you can have five contacts,” (Bersani 199). It is realized through Bersani’s work that the AIDS health crisis is not focused on finding a cure, but on the sexual appetite of gay men and the heterosexual moral compass in whether or not to give aid or allow the virus run its course as an eradication. Consequently, the questioning of the legitimacy of homosexuals for heterosexuals, as the heterosexual population can choose to see homosexuals as either human or human defects. Articulated by Bersani through the question, “Are there … heterosexuals who don’t awaken a passionate yearning not to share the same planet with [homosexuals]?” (Bersani 201). Thusly the homophobic misrepresentations not only question the …show more content…
Sedgwick begins by redefining the terminology of essentialist and constructivist for minoritizing and universalizing to free the cluttered terms from their past use as political party platforms (“Born this Way?”). To summarize their definitions, essentialist and constructivist must be understood as always in relation and opposition with one another as they both search for a definition to the origins of homosexuality (Sedgwick 40). Beginning with essentialist, homosexuality is viewed as biologically formed through genetic makeup, hence homosexuals are born this way (Sedgwick 42). This creates a platform for the acceptance of homosexuality as a minority group, to be viewed like other minorities in society such as racial minorities (“Born this Way?”). Looking towards its binary opposite, constructivists view homosexuality as culturally constructed (Sedgwick 41). Instead of restricting society to the binary of homosexual vs heterosexual, constructivists believe sexuality should be perceived as more fluid to include other sexualities, and as a result abolishing the binary of homosexual and heterosexual (“Born this way?”). As they both experiment with the social acceptance of other sexualities, essentialist and constructivist have now been restricted to a