Comment on Queer Theory

【Abstract】： Queer theory is a kind of theory about sex and gender in the 1990s. It originates homosexual movement and becomes normal theory of sexual minority beyond homosexuality. It questions and subverts the binary operation of sex. Queer theory is the ideological weapon to challenge patriarchal culture and the representative of sexual studies of modernism. The thesis comments the queer theory on its beginning， sources and main points to present the structure of queer theory.

【Key words】： "queer theory "homosexuality "heterosexuality "binary operation

1.Queer Theory

Queer theory begins to rise in 1990s which is a new sexual theory developed from homosexual and heterosexual politics and theory. Now it’s familiarized and loved by activities of sexual politics and the academic world. “Queer” usually means weird and is a pejorative term for gays and lesbians in Western culture. Later， radicals of sexuality use it to generalize their theory， filling with irony.

Queer theory， not a particular theory， is the interdiscipline of history， sociology and literature. It is marginal： the generation and their theory is absent in mainstream culture but they are unwilling to get the position too. The concept of “queer”， as the referent of a group， includes all those who are sexually perverse in mainstream culture and opposite against the dominant sexual norm. It is a non-straight term with a large category including gays， lesbians and bisexuals and other potential anti-normal position.

Teresa de Lauretis， a famous feminist and professor in Santa Cruz University USA， in the Introduction to the “Queer Theory” issue of differences （1991） traces the emergence of the term “queer” and describes the impact to postmodernism on lesbian and gay theorizing. While she argues that it is problematic to use queer theory substitute lesbian and gay theory because their difference is covered. She is worried that such term would deconstruct our narration and constructed silence of gays， which violates her intention at first about emphasizing their own particularities of gays and lesbians. Meanwhile differentiating queer theory and its application from feminism theory， she concerns that whether women， especially lesbians， will be compulsorily marginalized. Queer theory formerly connects with theories about gays. Lauretis holds that gay is no longer treated as marginality to mainstream and fixed sexual performance， as the perversion of normal sexuality and as the alternative of life style in North America pluralism. Gays and lesbians have been redefined as forms of their own sex and culture， though it is not fixed and has to reply on narration existed nowadays.

Queer politics creates a new culture through various components which are not connected. They maybe are the first group of activists accepting the modern model of postmodernism. They establish their own identities by means of adapting old and new components such as popular culture， colored people community， hippies， post-AIDS activists， anti-nuclear movement， music television， feminism and early homosexual emancipation movement. The new culture is exotic， exquisite， anarchical， rebellious and ironic. They are serious but also want to have fun. Queer politics is an important issue not only because what it said and did， but also because it reminds people of the fact that sexual politics as integrity is constantly developing and creating so as to go to different forms of existence.

2.Development of queer theory

With the development of mass media and abundance of wealth in the early 20th century， sex got involved in popular culture more and more. After WWII， people loosened the restraint to sex， especially in USA， as the flow of population and development of society. In the middle of the 20th century， rock music became popular and hippies and rebels emerged. They opposed the society as the war and despair of society and connected such rebellion with unbridled sex. Accordingly， movement of emancipation of women and homosexuals came out with sexual rebellion as the centre. To the 1970s， homosexuality gradually was accepted by the society in America with the proceeding of feminist movement and emancipation of gays and lesbians. Meanwhile， people attacked homosexuals as AIDS; however， colored homosexuals questioned the mainstream homosexual culture and even disagreement which was used by anti-homosexuality politics arose between gays and lesbians. Therefore， queer theory emerged under the influence of post-deconstruction of France and Lacan’s psychoanalysis.

Queer theory first emerged in a series of academic seminars hold by Yale University and Ivy League. To the use of “queer”， Michael Warner said that it was to find a proper way to describe some thing. It would have an invaluable influence to how to organize and express it and to its legality. People ever used “nation”， “community” and “race” to name sexual tendency but each one was not satisfactory. To avoid restriction， people turn homosexuality to “queer” which shows the superiority of connection of homophobia and resistance against “queer” behaviors.

Debates among different groups about Queer theory have been constant after the emergence of queer theory. It mainly focuses on the essentialism and construction about the formation of identity of “queer”. Queer theory has directly drawn on Judith Butler’s sex and gender as social construction and gender performativity. In her famous work Gender Trouble the crux of argument is that the coherence of the categories of sex， gender， and sexuality—the natural-seeming coherence， for example， of masculine gender and heterosexual desire in male bodies—is culturally constructed through the repetition of stylized acts in time. These stylized bodily acts， in their repetition， establish the appearance of an essential， ontological \"core\" gender. This is the sense in which Butler famously theorizes gender， along with sex and sexuality， as performative.

Queer theory is just such a theory. It， coming out in the stage of severely attacking homosexuality， adopts a concept of “umbrella” for covering so as to prevent inner fight of homosexual camp. It is also the social background and political purpose of its emergence. With its development， queer theory gradually becomes a cross-interdisciplinary and intentionally refusing definition theory. While shaking the fixed relationship between sex， gender and sexuality， it collapses the irrational and rigescent concept of sex and gender existing in the society. It aims to deconstruct the general classification to human linguistically and philosophically， deny the truth of the absolute classification and resist the irrational issues of individuality restraining integrity. It just fits the intention of emergence of language and philosophy. Language is for recording and communicating. Philosophy is for accumulating and spreading but not imprisoning humanity.

3.Theoretical sources

The young queer theory aging twenty years is vanward in the study of sexual minority. Its origin could be found from ancient Greek. Philosophy， literature， arts， and medicine can get their source of spirit at that time. Doctor Hans licht ever said in his Sexual Life in Ancient Greek that the history of ancient Greek is a history of homosexuality. He explored the love and sex awareness expressed by ancient Greeks in the activities of festivals， custom， myth and literature. Foucault in The History of Sexuality ever analyzed deeply sex and law of the period. Therefore we can find some sources of queer theory connected with ancient Greek.

Tolerance for adoration between men. Many people， especially sexists， affirm affection between man and boy. It is obvious in the epic， comedy， myth， prose and lyrics of ancient Greek. The famous one should be Plato’s Symposium which narrated the story of having three kinds of sex at the beginning of human through Aristophanes’ lips. The romantic assumption reflects the positive attitude towards plural forms of love in ancient Greek. However， not any kind of love would be favorable. People will despise the homosexual love that aims to get money and pleasant sensation. After analyzing the adoration towards young man， one would rather say that the adoration is the result of understanding and supporting than say that it is because people admire man extremely in ancient Greek. Since young men obviously are superior to men at other age intellectually and physically， at the same time， ancient Greeks appreciated noble and beautiful thing， the image of young man naturally became the totemic existence.

The humble stations of women. In the rational age of ancient Greek， women without chance to learn were left at the bottom of heap and would be mocked by various tragicomedies and satirical poems， which shows how many bad habits were covered in the so-called “civilized” ancient Greek culture. And those lesbians were much lowers in the society. Tribad， with meaning of crime， was used to refer to women who had homosexual tendency. Hetaira， the origin of hetairistria and dihetairistria which referred to lesbians too， means higher prostitute. In ancient Greek， lesbians got the treatment of polarity comparing with gays because their homosexual love challenged the authority of sexists. The equality and openness love in ancient Greek civilization is no more than a kind of nice illusion covered in male hegemony， which is what queer theory should resist. At the same time， there were a group of men among such women. They were despised and scorned at beginning because they are womanish and sissy. Their behaviors were seen as the imitation to the inferior race by ancient Greeks. All in all， the authority of sexists was offended.

Homosexual love as the tool spreading wisdom. We mention above that one would rather say that the adoration is the result of understanding and supporting than say that it is because people admire man extremely in ancient Greek. And it is no doubt that such adoration interweave with the adoration towards wisdom. Man was the representation of wisdom in ancient Greek. Youth became the important subject of attention as the future of nation and successor of ration and knowledge. They benefited from homosexual love more spiritually. The homosexual lust physically were opposed and despised. The love between men was a kind of tool to transmit wisdom as educational method with sexist color but not love which leaded to real free marriage. From the norm dividing the age of “loving one” and “be-loved one”， the foundation of such love was one’s wisdom and experience but not real emotion.

4.Main viewpoints

Firstly， queer theory challenges the binary classification of heterosexuality and homosexuality， namely the “normal” of society. The “normal” is the heterosexual hegemony and patriarchy and also only treats sexual behavior within marriage and for proliferation as normal. To radicals in academic world and emancipation， they define themselves as “queers” to oppose all the “normals”， especially the heterosexual hegemony. Now， queer theory challenges the naturalness of heterosexuality and proposes the possibility that sexuality gets rid of identity of sex. Queer theory tends to accept the practice of masochism and other roles. It is the challenge to heterosexual hegemony to establish sex of queers on a constantly changing performance. Queer theory makes the concept of sex identity based on sexual tendency and sexuality change.

Secondly， queer theory challenges the traditional homosexual culture. Queer theory and queer politics signify a new culture， sexual， sexy and subversive. Not only will it subvert the heterosexual hegemony， but also break the orthodox concept of homosexuality. It provides with a method to express the desire and will collapse the identity of gender and sex including heterosexual and homosexual identity. Queer theory attacks the difference of heterosexuality and homosexuality and that binary operation. Queer theory， questioning the identity of gays and lesbians， criticizes the static concept of identity and put forward the flow and changing idea. It tries to change individual identity politics to the politics of significance. It doesn’t treat the identity of gay and lesbian as stable thing but sees identity as local and changeable. To some people， identity is performative and is created by interactive relationship and the change of roles. Queer theory criticizes the exclusiveness of identity in traditional homosexual theory while discovers how heterosexuality was normalized.

Lastly， queer theory connects with postmodern theory. Queer theory occurred when postmodern theory flourished and they are in a close relationship. The philosophical background of queer theory is post-structuralism and postmodernism. Postmodernism is misunderstood often because it deconstructs all classification and identity. Some feminists hold that feminism should keep distance with postmodernism which is the enemy of social reform. It is similar with its attitude towards queer theory. Actually， the fear comes from the misunderstanding to postmodernism. Deconstructionism just a change of model and it won’t make any thing unreal or temporary. It is wrong to think that male and female， homosexual and heterosexual is a kind of classification. Deconstructionism， in fact is beneficial to resist oppression because it give people power to get rid of rigid existed social culture mechanism. Deconstructing the concept of male and female， homosexual and heterosexual won’t be fear. It won’t remove the practice of real emancipation but provide a new way and weapon.

Reference

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