Day: March 5, 2018

As I understand it, the “antisocial thesis” refers to the notion that queerness exists outside of societal expectations and sociality, first postulated by Leo Bersani in the 1995 book Homos. (Caserio et al. 819) Naturally, there are many different ways to read this, with some readings being that queerness exists in opposition to mainstream society, others saying that it should redefine mainstream society, and some saying the two shouldn’t be compared.

When Rodríguez speaks about “politically incorrect erotic desires” (Rodríguez 342) she uses fantasies as a way to discuss internalized ways in which society affects the desires and needs of oppressed individuals, specifically addressing the nuance behind how our sexual identities are formed.

This relates to the “antisocial thesis” discussed in the PMLA document because our fantasies are mostly antisocial and exist within niche queer communities (such as BDSM and various communities under that umbrella) that organize under the guise of discreteness when not in the position of activism/pride. An example that she brings up is “daddy play”, in order to highlight that people argue that it “does not condone, engender, or map easily onto actual accounts of coercive incestuous relations” (Rodríguez 342)—this method of looking at problematic fetishes provides agency for the consenting individuals involve while also detangling the systematic pressures that created these desires in the first place. She brings up many different points that argue either for or against it, saying that certain fetishes (another example being race/power relations and their role in BDSM play) have inherent contexts no matter what the intent, but ultimately ending on the notion that “everyday trauma constitutes our lives.” (Rodríguez 345)

REFERENCES

Caserio, Robert L., et al. “The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory.” PMLA, vol. 121, no. 3, 2006, pp. 819–828. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25486357.

Rodríguez, J. M. “Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, vol. 17 no. 2, 2011, pp. 331-348. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/437415.

 

This week’s readings present the antisocial thesis in queer theory as a renunciation of redemptive and futuristic thought. In Judith Halberstam’s position statement, they note that Lee Edelman argues that the antisocial thesis’ embrace of negativity and antisociality is natural because queerness is structurally antisocial due the inability to reproduce that is associated with homosexual sex. Halberstam describes this antisocial thesis as  “be[ing] willing to turn away from the comfort zone of polite exchange to embrace a truly political negativity, one that promises, this time, to fail, to make a mess, to fuck shit up…” (The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory 824). The premise of refusing to work and speak in ways that are polite or are connected to a greater system that operates under the capitalist regime of production is especially interesting because of the meaning/activist stance that emerges from what some might identify as passivity at first glance. Another intriguing premise is Leo Bersani’s theorization of the antisocial thesis’ exploitation of the threat of homosexuality as a political tool. This involves the confrontation of homophobia as a destructive force and can be used to interrogate the social.

Just as queerness is seen as non-normative, sexual and romantic fantasy also often falls into the category of what is taboo. Rodriguez writes about fantasy rather than sexual practice because even benign fantasies—”love, marriage, and domestic bliss (whether hetero or homo)” (Rodriguez 342)—are subject to the systems of racialized power difference. Rodriguez feels it is necessary to point out that race dynamics inform how play out in both queer and heterosexual and “perverted” or standard fantasies. While Edelman and Bersani seem to locate their theorizations in the vacuum of whiteness, Rodriguez attempts to enter consider race and its implications in her work.

References:

Caserio, R. L., Edelman, L., Halberstam, J., Muniz, J. E., & Dean, T. (2011). The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory. Modern Language Association, 121 (3), 819-828.

Rodriguez, J. M. (2011). Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 17 (2-3), 331-348.

From my understanding of the readings, antisocial thesis in queer theory is a thesis that presents queerness and queer people as being deeply conflicted, contradictory and incompatible with normative sociality.  It is a thesis that coincides with Leo Bersani’s definition of sex as “anti-communitarian, self-shattering and anti-identitarian” (PMLA 823). This way of thinking about sex creates a “shift from projects of redemption, reconstruction, restoration, and reclamation and toward what can only be called an antisocial, negative, and anti-relational theory of sexuality” (PMLA 823). Societal imposition has formed a heteronormative narrative surrounding sex and sexual practices which is where queer theory becomes antisocial in nature as sex is centered around pleasure rather than reproduction.

So how do we begin to make sense of our politically incorrect erotic desires? (Rodriguez, 342)

In relation to the “antisocial thesis,” “politically incorrect desires,” as Rodriguez terms, reinforces the negative theory of sexuality and belief that queerness is incompatible with normative sociality as there exists many sexual desires that do not fit into society’s norms and that are considered “unnatural.”  The sexual fantasies that Rodriguez refers to almost always contains a power dynamic, whether that be a racialized one or one centering around gender and hyper-masculinity. These sexual fantasies are largely accepted in society and have become the norm to the point where they are no longer seen as being antisocial or damaging. She seeks to disrupt the narrative and calls into question the very nature, nuance, and connotation of what antisocial means in regards to both queer theory and heteronormative discourse on both sexual practices and fantasies.

Sources:

Caserio, R. L., Edelman, L., Halberstam, J., Muniz, J. E., & Dean, T. (2011). The antisocial thesis in queer theory. Modern Language Association, 121(3), 819-828.

Rodriguez, J. M. (2011). Queer sociality and other sexual fantasies. GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, 17(2-3), 331-348.

To me, antisocial thesis in queer theory is the, at least partial embracing of homophobic views of homosexuality in order to contend and undermine the socially constructed heterosexual view of self. That is not to say to agree with homophobic view of homosexuality, but to use the views against themselves. As Tim Dean put it in “The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory,” “The burden of ‘antisocial thesis in queer theory,’…is not that lesbians and gay men are unsociable but that some aspect of homosexuality threatens the social and that it might be strategic politically to exploit that threat. Homosexuality can be viewed as threatening because, insofar as we fail to reproduce the family in a recognizable form, queers fail to reproduce the social.” In order for homosexuality to be threatening, there has to be an intrinsic homophobic stance taken as a starting point to completely demolish homophobic views. Furthermore, the concept of utopia stands out to me as particularly moving. As Juana María Rodríguez put it in “Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies,” “The work of utopia must always be both a casting of possibilities and a tireless critique of the present.” By viewing queer theory in an antisocial frame, antisocial in the sense that the concept of queerness combats the heterosexual patriarchal hierarchy, and by imagining a utopia in which these hierarchies cease to exist, the conditions of the present can be critiqued from the theoretical framework of a “perfect” world. As a utopian society does not exist, all theorizing from the utopian viewpoint must be fantasy. As Rodríguez put it, “Fantasy offers a venue for exploration and pleasure that is available to anyone who dares.” By also looking at sexual fantasies rather than sexual practices, sexual possibilities rather than sexual realities can be taken into account in the queer narrative.

 

The antisocial thesis in queer theory is stated as the idea that LGBTQ+ people are incompatible with society due to societies heteronormative ideas. A particularly interesting premise of this idea that stood out to me was how this theory related to the AIDS epidemic and that 56.8% of News of the World readers thought that AIDS carriers should be sterilized and given treatment to curb their sexual appetite. This is obviously pointed at members of the LGBTQ+ community who, at the time, were seen as one of the only populations that suffered from AIDS (Bersani, 199). Additionally, societies thoughts on sex are based around procreating which causes this inherent struggle between LGBTQ+ individuals and society at large.

Politically incorrect erotic desires can been defined as acts of social deviance as these “incorrect erotic desires” do not fit in with societies ideas of sexuality at large. This connects to the antisocial thesis because these erotic desires also do not align with societies ideas of sex and sexuality. Rodríguez focuses on fantasy rather than sexual practices because fantasies allow for sexual possibilities outside of just the culture norms of white able bodied men. Rodríguez’s idea of sexual fantasies allows the inclusion of a spectrum of race, gender, and power within sexual desires as opposed to Bersani and Eldman’s focus on sexual acts and practices which revolve mainly around anal sex.

Citations:

Robert L. Caserio, Lee Edelman, Judith Halberstam, José Esteban Muñoz and Tim Dean, “The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory,” PMLA 121, no. 3 (May, 2006): 819-828.

Leo Bersani: “Is the Rectum a Grave?” October 43 (Winter, 1987): 197- 222.

Juana María Rodríguez, “Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 17, no. 2 (2011): 331-48.

Lee Edelman, “The Future Is Kid Stuff,” in No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), 1-32.