Sexuality & Culture

Order Description

Please use references below:

How does queer theory, as revealed in the readings by Foucault and Raymond, help us to understand the ways in which LGBT characters have challenged heteronormativity* in the wider Western culture, as well as understand and appreciate the significance of that challenge?

What are the particular challenges that sexualization offers to us—no matter our orientation—and how might (or might not) sexual citizenship offer us a way of surviving and navigating a sexualisation culture?

*Heteronormativity is the phenomenon whereby heterosexual sexuality is made the normative standard for sexual orientation in Western society; people of other sexual orientations, notably here LGBT, are then made to answer to that standard in how they think about themselves, conduct their lives, and view media and culture.

References:
Michel Foucault. (1978). Part 1: We “Other” Victorians. In History of Sexuality (pp. 3-13). Vintage.

Raymond, Diane (2003). Popular Culture and Queer Representation: A Critical Perspective. In Gender, Race and Class in Media, eds. Gail Dines and Jean McMahon Humez. eds., pp. 98-110.

Attwood, Feona (2006). Sexed Up: Theorizing the Sexualization of Culture. Sexualities, 9(1), 77–94.