The antisocial thesis in queer theory is the idea that homosexuality is inherently incompatible with community, sociality, civic service, and traditional qualities of good citizenship (PMLA, 819). Something that stands out to me is the idea of the “cult of family in the United States that never questions the value of biological reproduction” and its relationship to non-procreative love with respect to fears about mortality (PMLA, 820). Another premise of this that stands out to me is the idea of sex as anti-communitarian (PMLA, 823).
Politically incorrect erotic desires are an opposition to the antisocial thesis because labeling desires as incorrect is a method of alienating members of the queer community that can only be rectified by acknowledging difference (Rodriguez, 342). Rodriguez supports a future of queer sociality based in recognition of differences instead of antisociality, and talks about the ways that the political right demonizes sexualized and racialized subjects and that the queer community disavows those things in response to that (Rodriguez, 332). Rodriguez claims that the “inability to recognize the alternative sexual practices…that exist outside the sightlines of cosmopolitan gay white male urban culture” is fundamental for antisociality, which does not have room for sexual possibilities outside of those identities (Rodriguez, 333). Because of this, Rodriguez writes about fantasies whereas Bersani and the PMLA focus on actual practices because antisociality is framed around certain sexual practices emphasizing white, able-bodied men and does not have room for sexual possibilities outside of those categories (Rodriguez, 335).
References
Bersani, Is the Rectum a Grave
PMLA, The Antisocial Thesis in Queer Theory panel
Rodríguez, “Queer Sociality and Other Sexual Fantasies”