Sunday, October 23, 2011
How to Bring Your Kids Up Gay, Joy of the Castrated Boy
There were several things that I found interesting while reading these two pieces. One was the different descriptions and qualifiers in the DSM-III involving the terminology of homosexual. It is interesting that there are so many different opinions and theories regarding classification and naming. Also, the theory that the reason that effeminate boys turn out gay is become other masculine men don't affirm the boys masculinity. In the Joy of the Castrated Boy, it was interesting that he considers himself a castrated man without having taken any physical change to his body. Also, I never really considered where someone like that would be able "fit in." They don't really identify with either group. At the end of the writing, his mother had changed so much from the beginning of the piece that it was pleasantly surprising.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Note that Sedgwick toys with the relationship between gayness and lack of validation from masculine men, but I don't think she settles for it, nor does she trace a causal relationship. Although it is probably true that in normative masculine boys' projection of queerness (a "strangeness" that embodies all humans, really) onto feminine boys alone they "buy" a certain kind of relief from anxiety in doing as if "queerness" (a non-mastery of one's Desire, which is akin to the human condition) did not inhabit their own bodies.
ReplyDelete