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.