Straightening Space: Neoliberalism and Gay Public Sex

• In Event: 106 - Open Refereed Roundtable Session I
  In Refereed Roundtable: A. Table 10. Intersectionalities

Abstract

Through this paper, I attempt to examine the Neoliberal public/private binary in America via gay sex. Drawing from Lisa Duggan’s conceptions of Neoliberalism and homonormativity, I show that sexuality in the US has been confined to the private/domestic sphere except for certain acceptable performances of heterosexual identities. Examining George Chauncey’s accounts of gay men in New York City in the early 20th century, I argue that NYC officials made a point of rendering certain functionally private spaces (like bathroom stalls or wooded areas) public, thereby making those areas the domain of the state. Despite the fact that one of Neoliberalism’s tenets is the privacy of businesses from state regulation and scrutiny, US officials later used the HIV epidemic as an excuse to both scrutinize and regulate businesses that offered spaces gay men used to have sex. State attacks against US gay sex-related businesses were done under the auspices of HIV prevention. This motivation was farcical given the fact that the attacks argued for banning all sexual activity in these spaces and not just those acts that are known to spread HIV. Building off of Michael Warner, I then argue that the attacks on US gay sexual institutions are part of a larger movement to remove from public view all sexual aspects of homosexuality, producing the current situation in the US where mainstream gay activists call for a desexualized and homonormative gay identity and culture.

Author

• Benjamin Joseph Nobile Kampler, City University of New York-Queens College