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.