Dirty Subjects and Queer Textualities

• In Event: 219 - Section on Sociology of Sexualities Paper Session. Sexuality Studies and the Boundaries of “Acceptable” Sociology

Abstract

This paper describes how I came to write about erotic dancers as ethnographic fiction for a trade audience. The talk charts my journey confronting epistemological dilemmas linked to the performance of an embodied academic subjectivity and the fluidity of the personal/professional self, ethical minefields related to the study of sexuality per se, and the "politics of respectability" demanded of intellectuals both in academe and among the public. It shares my story of shopping for the best textuality that might bridge the gap between academic and nonacademic knowledges while protecting both my "subjects" and myself. Writing for a popular audience on sexuality poses numerous challenges including the risks associated with representing research on sexuality in the current political climate and worries about the popular reception of polysemic texts. I suggest the use of experimental textualities reflects an alternative academic aesthetic, a re-skilling of intellectual culture, and the formation of new academic subjectivities.

Author

• Julie Bettie, University of California-Santa Cruz