“Creepy Cruisers: Towards a sociology of sexual creepiness”

• In Event: Methods and Theory in the Sociology of Sexualities

Abstract

Very few works in the sociological literature have grappled with “creepiness” as a theoretical paradigm to discuss the politics of sexual interaction. In this working paper, I bring together psychoanalytic frameworks of “creepiness” with affect theory to discuss how men navigate the stigma of being called a “creep” when negotiating sexual dynamics. Utilizing a specific case study of men’s same-sex cruising in Korean spas in Southern CA, I examine how and why men of diverse racial backgrounds use Korean spas as spaces for same-sex hook ups and the sexual politics involved in these dynamics. Drawing from interview data with 41 men and a collection of ~14,000 comments posted to an online public forum for men seeking same-sex encounters, I argue that as a site of abjection, the creep becomes a discursive reference point from which these men construct and reaffirm a morally acceptable sexual identity.

Importantly, I highlight how this “creep discourse” gets unevenly mapped onto bodies in ways that reify structures of inequality. Fat, older, and Asian men, occupying less valued forms of bodily capital, are more vulnerable to creep discourse. Thus, while I discuss how the creep is a pervasive sexual discourse that structures the contours of cruising respectability (ie. normative sexual subjecthood), I also position creepiness as an embodied affect more likely to stick to particular bodies and sexual subjectivities. In doing so, I develop a sociology of creepiness, demonstrating that whilst anyone can theoretically be labelled a creep, hegemonic structures of power result in unequal application and treatment of this affective impression. Ultimately, I argue that the invocation of creep discourse is emblematic of modern forms of inequality, allowing men to reconstitute and refract systems of inequality in seemingly morally acceptable ways.

Author

• Kendall Ota, University of California, Los Angeles