What are the main views and propositions of queer theory
For a long time, people have regarded heterosexuality as the norm and homosexuality as abnormal. Twenty years ago, most societies thought homosexuality was some kind of disease (in China, many people still think homosexuality is a disease), and people wanted to cure them, understand them, or curse them. This is not a problem of individual homosexuals, but a problem of social structure. Under the rule of this social norm, heterosexuals hate homosexuals, and homosexuals suffer from chronic self-hatred because of their abnormality. Homophobia is no longer a personal problem but a social problem. The active gay community of the 1970s disrupted the notion of the heterosexual natural order. Today, the naturalness of heterosexuality is challenged by queer theory, which raises the possibility of freeing sexual desire from gender identity.
In the traditional concept of sex and gender, the strongest foundation of the heterosexual mechanism lies in the relationship between biological sex, social gender and sexual desire. A person’s biological gender determines his or her sexual orientation. Gendered characteristics and heterosexual desires. Despite the vast amount of research that confirms the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality, and despite the vast number of practices that violate this relationship, the relationship between these three has always gone unchallenged. Although according to the Kinsey Report, more than 50% of men and more than 30% of women have experienced same-sex sexual behavior in their lifetime, heterosexist hegemony still believes that the expression of sexual desire is determined by social gender identity, and social gender identity It is also determined by biological sex.
Butler's theory of performance is of particular importance in the challenge of rigid classifications of sex, gender, and sexuality. She believes that people's homosexual, heterosexual or bisexual behavior does not come from a fixed identity, but like an actor, it is a constantly changing performance. In Butler's view, no gender is the true gender, the true basis for other performative and repetitive behaviors. Gender is also not an expression of an innate sexual identity. Heterosexuality itself is artificially innate and naturalized and serves as the basis for human sexual behavior. Dichotomous patterns of sexual identity (either or this, heterosexual or homosexual) are genetically unstable and are the result of circular definitions in which each must refer to the other. Homosexuality means non-heterosexuality; heterosexuality means non-homosexuality. Because of its emphasis on performance theory, Butler's thought has been called radical Foucauldianism, which is considered a new philosophical behaviorism in which there is no being, only doing.
For Butler, there is no proper or correct gender, that is, a gender appropriate to one biological sex or another, nor is there any cultural attribute of biological sex. . She believes that rather than having a proper form of gender, there is an illusion of continuity, and it is heterosexuality that innates and naturalizes itself between sex, gender, and desire. ization results. In heterosexuality, this illusion relies on the assumption that there is a biological sex first, which is expressed through gender, and then through sex. Butler goes against the grain. She believes that heterosexual sexual dominance is a manifestation of the compulsion of biological sex.
Gender performance is coercive in the sense that deviation from gender norms leads to social ostracism, punishment, and violence. Not to mention the transgressive pleasures generated by these taboos, which will bring more serious punishments. There is an urgency and compulsion to this performance, which is reflected in the corresponding social punishment. In order to construct a heterosexual identity, heterosexuality requires a continuous performance of gender. (Butler, 19-24)
In Butler's view, the connection between biological sex, social gender and desire constructs heterosexuality, which must be forced and fragile. The Oedipus complex invented by Freud is the original denial of same-sex love. The knot of Oedipus borrows the story of a prince from ancient Greek mythology who killed his father and raped his mother to illustrate that all people have heterosexual incestuous impulses. Butler believed that the original taboo was not heterosexual incest, but homosexuality. The taboo against incest between opposite sexes is not the cause, but the result of the ban on same-sex sexual desires.
The heterosexual incest taboo prohibits the object of desire, while the homosexual taboo prohibits desire itself. In other words, not only is the object lost, but the desire is completely denied, so 'I never lost that person, I never loved that person, I really never felt that love'. (Butler, 69)
By eradicating all desires other than heterosexuality and killing the possibility of all other choices, the heterosexual hegemonic society constructs a sexual and sexy subject. Gender performances sexualize parts of the body, recognizing them merely as sources of pleasure. In the construction process of heterosexual orientation, people believe that only these parts of the body are used to produce sexual pleasure, and gender performances are connected with sexual activities: a woman with femininity obtains pleasure through vaginal penetration, A masculine man, on the other hand, experiences pleasure through the penetration of his penis. A transsexual is caught in the dilemma of believing that he cannot have a certain gender identity if he does not have the corresponding sexual organs. A transsexual person expresses his or her identity through the implantation or removal of certain organs. This is not a subversive act, but rather reflects the extent to which biological sex, gender, and desire have been innate and naturalized. In the process, attention is focused on appropriate gender performance rather than sexy sexual activity.
This performance is a gender performance about masculinity and femininity. This kind of performance makes people understand what is the dual system of biological sex and social gender. A cross-dressing performance is therefore not an imitation of the original form; it is, to use Butler's famous phrase, an imitation of an imitation, a copy without the original. When a boy wants to wear girls' clothes or live like a girl, what force forces him to do such cruel things to his body? Why can't he wear a skirt? Why can't he simply live his life? What about the life of a girl he wants to live? This is because he lives under the power of heterosexual hegemony, and an invisible violence regulates what clothes he should wear and how he should behave. This is such a powerful and terrifying force. It can force people to mutilate their own limbs. We simply can no longer regard it as an invisible force. It is simply something tangible that can be seen and touched. Typing individuals based on their sexual identities and objects of desire becomes meaningless. Queer theory tends to embrace sadomasochism and other role-playing practices, defining their deviance against sexual norms as anti-forbidden sexuality. Grounding queer sexuality in a series of changing performances is a challenge to heteronormative hegemony. In a word, queer theory has caused a huge change in the concept of sexual identity based on sexual orientation or sexual desire. It is a serious challenge to the relationship between gender identity and sexual desire in society. The second important content of queer theory is to challenge the dichotomous structure of men and women, and to challenge all strict classifications; its main target of criticism is the dominant Western way of thinking, that is, the dichotomous way of thinking. Some thinkers call this dichotomous way of thinking a dichotomous prison, believing that it is a prison that suppresses people's free choice.
Queer theory consciously transcends the hierarchy of gender types, and its central logic is to deconstruct the dichotomous structure, that is, the either-or division of gender identities. This ironic concept of queer does not refer to a certain gender type, nor to a certain gender, but to a process whereby the expression of gender identity escapes such a structural framework. Rather than a label for a new fixed gender subject, queer provides an ontological typology that stands in opposition to the dichotomous core of modernist discourse. It leaves behind the singular, permanent and continuous self and replaces it with a conception of the self as performative, changeable, discontinuous and processual, made up of constant repetition and continuous action. It gives new forms of behavioral constructs.
Butler is also the most authoritative theorist on the issue of opposing the binary structure of gender (male and female). Following Foucault's theoretical vein, she questions the necessity of a fixed female identity and explores the possibility of a radical politics that critiques various identity classifications. She questions the concept of intrinsic abilities, essence or identity of gender, arguing that they are nothing more than a repetitive practice through which certain appearances are precipitated and solidified, and they are regarded as some kind of inner essence. or the appearance of natural existence.
The heterosexualization of desire requires the opposition of 'femininity' and 'masculinity' and the institutionalization of this opposition, understanding them as the essence of 'masculine' and 'feminine'. (Quoted from Segal, 190)
Among the challenges that queer theory poses to various identity categories, transgender is of special importance. The so-called super-gender includes cross-dressing and transsexuality, as well as people who neither cross-dress nor transsexually but like to live like a person of another gender. Butler believes that the boundaries between men and women are unclear. Physiological statistics show that 6% to 10% of people in the world are born between the two sexes, and their biological sex is uncertain.
The unclear and increasingly blurred boundaries between the sexes can be seen everywhere in today’s world, and are forming a new social fashion.
In Sydney, people who broke gender boundaries held a one-day march. Thousands of normal people saw them and became witnesses of this new fashion.
Michael from the United States. Jackson is the most famous singer after Elvis Presley and Peter. The most famous androgynous folk hero since Pan. His existence is a threat to the dichotomy between men and women.
Britain's Mark Simpson has provided the latest witty public image of a gay porn star, passive anal sexist and sexual masochist in the mass media, appearing in everything from football to So muscular that he appeared in ads for hair removal and men's pants, his image illustrates that the male body - naked, passive, desired and viewed as a sexual object - is beginning to be displayed in unprecedented ways. Said: The traditional concept of heterosexuality is no longer sustainable in the face of this reversal. (Segal, 198-199) Obviously, the traditional male image and behavioral norms are also subverted by his image.
In addition to transsexuality, cross-dressing is also an important form of the trans-gender trend. One of the most important aspects of cross-dressing is that it challenges simple notions of dichotomy, the classification of male and female.
Another important form in the social trend of transcending gender roles are lesbians and gay men, whose existence makes all definitions of biological sex, gender and sexual orientation All have become problems. These two types of people's self-gender identity does not match their biological sex. Their biological sex is male or female, and their social gender identity is another gender. Their sexual orientation also does not match their biological sex: they are psychologically heterosexual but biologically homosexual. In the 1990s, the blurring of gender and gender roles has become more and more intense. In a psychological clinic, a girl described to the doctor the problem she encountered: she wanted to be a man, and a gay man. In other words, her biological sex is female, her social gender is male, and her sexual orientation is homosexual. She is a woman and she loves men, but she does not want to love men as a woman, but as a man. This is the new situation faced by people in the 1990s.
Kate Bornstein said in 1994: The answer to the question of who is a transsexual can be this: anyone who admits it. A more political answer is: anyone whose gender expression is problematic from the perspective of the gender structure itself. (Bemynetal, 35) In this regard, Butler has a famous saying: Everyone is a transsexual. She means that no one can be a standard male or female (and no one can be a standard homosexual or heterosexual).
The emphasis on transsexual phenomena gives bisexuality a special importance in queer theory. Queer theory holds that the new version of freedom is to abolish the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality; if this change is achieved, all people will have to recognize their own bisexual potential. Bisexuality is of special importance precisely because the existence of bisexuals questions the distinction between normal people, lesbians and gay men, and the image of bisexuality is an important transgres -sive) image. The reasons why bisexuality can deconstruct the dichotomous structure of gender and sexuality in society are: first, because bisexuality occupies an ambiguous position between various identities, it can reveal the existing differences between all identities. Flaws and contradictions indicate differences within an identity.
Secondly; because identity is fluid, bisexuality reveals the peculiar nature of all politicized sexual identities: on the one hand, the vast discontinuity in personal sexual and emotional choices over time; on the other, the discontinuity of personal political identity .
Some queer people have humorously called themselves straightwithatwists. Straight line is a colloquial term for a normal person or a heterosexual person in English. The term "curved straight line" fully reveals the new trend of blurring the boundaries between various categories. In the future, we will have curved straight lines, we will have heterosexuals engaging in homosexuality, we will have feminine men and masculine women. One scholar jokingly said: Who knows, maybe at next year's academic symposium, we will see a paper title like this: Lesbian heterosexuality-the last unknown territory. (Heller, 47) Watney, who has a British background, and Michael Warner, who has an American background, define queer politics as the opposite of lesbian and gay identity politics that pretends to be sacred moralism. Watney points out that traditional gay identity politics, in order to challenge people's stereotypes and indifference to homosexuality, has a tendency to suppress the vast differences that exist in queer sexualities in the name of gay community values, thereby creating a set of A highly formalized picture of the gay lifestyle. Queer culture, on the contrary, is a denial of this highly normalized value of homosexuality, with its picture of sexual diversity encompassing everything from Oscar to Oscar-winning. Oscar Wilde to Tom of Finland and even people like Madonna. Queer culture, Watney claims, is a challenge to the authority of dominant sexual epistemologies.
Queer theory attacks the distinction between homosexuality and heterosexuality, exposing and criticizing the hidden ways in which this dichotomy operates. Queer theorist Sedgwick explains it this way: The polar opposite categories in a certain culture, such as the division between heterosexuality and homosexuality, are actually in an unstable and dynamic relationship. So it’s not enough to fight for a positive view of homosexuality, but also to protect people’s right to choose to be queer.
Queer theory questions the identity of lesbians and gays themselves, criticizes the static concept of identity, and proposes a fluid and changing concept. Queer theory attempts to turn personal identity politics into the politics of signification. Queer theory holds that identities are performative, created through interactions and role shifts. Queer theory criticizes the exclusivity of traditional homosexual theory on identity issues, revealing how heterosexuality is normalized while constructing lesbian and gay identities.
Fourth, queer theory has great strategic significance. Queer theory believes that democratic principles apply equally to the development of the individual and personality; queer politics builds a political alliance that includes bisexuals, heterosexuals, lesbians, and gays, and all those who reject domination Status of sex, gender and sexual systems of people. Queer politics embraces all people who identify with this new politics, regardless of their past sexual identity, orientation, or activity. Strictly speaking, one can neither be a homosexual nor be or not be a homosexual. But one can marginalize oneself, one can transform oneself, one can be queer.
The term queer thus has a strategic meaning, rather than referring to a permanent identity. Queerness is not a new identity; the concept is appealing because these people share similar experiences and lifestyles as sexual outlaws. It is not an essentialist identity that these people share. It occurs among isolated individuals, in opposition to the family value of monogamy, in opposition to heterosexual hegemony.
Many queer activists no longer identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or even heterosexual, but simply refer to themselves as queer. Queer sexualities are difficult to locate within the realm of traditional sexual structures and are more fluid, negotiated, contested, and creative alternatives. Lesbians, gays, and bisexuals may need to come out, but queer identities are walked in.
Queers have also created their own categories: queer, queerer, queerest. This classification is unlike any previous classification.
Queer theory’s multiple subjectivities create discontinuities in biological sex and gender in different social and racial historical contexts, providing opportunities for gays, lesbians, and Stronger alliances between transgender, transsexual, and bisexual communities create the conditions for their joint efforts to transform institutionalized heterosexual hegemony.
It is worth mentioning that queer theory as a political strategy has special significance in a society like China. Because there has always been a tendency in Chinese culture to blur the boundaries between various things rather than distinguish them clearly, because gay identity politics has never been developed in China, and because the state and society have never suppressed homosexuality like in the West. So intense, therefore, drawing on queer theory, China's gay politics may transcend the stage of identity politics and directly enter the stage of uniting with all non-normative sexual orientations to jointly resist heterosexist hegemony and jointly create resistance. A new situation of repressive power.