Quick note: I apologize if none of this makes sense. I\u2019m trying to explain a theory that Sedgwick wrote two whole books about, so I may have failed dramatically. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In class on Monday, I mentioned that I noticed an intertwining of queer coding and religious imagery in Part 1 of Go Tell It On The Mountain. <\/em>I\u2019d like to expand on this observation considering our extensive in class discussions of the topic. Specifically, we discussed the \u201choly kiss\u201d between Gabriel and Elisha (Baldwin 53). On a related note, we discussed the fact that Bigger Thomas masturbates alongside his male friend, an action which is only \u201cok\u201d because the object of desire is, allegedly, a woman (Mary Dalton). All of these scenes invoke homosociality, a word which is actually a technical term in queer theory. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I hear people use the word \u201chomosocial\u201d quite a bit. Many people assume the word merely refers to same-sex socialization, describing a space that is exclusively male or exclusively female. In academia, though, homosociality is a term popularized by Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, a literary scholar of queer theory and feminism. Attention to homosociality notes the intense male-male (or female-female) desire which is \u201cat once compulsory and the most prohibited of social bonds\u201d (Epistemology of the Closet <\/em>187). In wikipedia\u2019s<\/a> words, homosociality \u201cconnote[s] a form of male bonding often accompanied by a fear or hatred of homosexuality.\u201d It is “a form of male bonding with a characteristic triangular structure. In this triangle, men have intense but nonsexual bonds with other men, and women serve as the conduits through which those bonds are expressed.” According to Sedgwick, same-sex spaces are structured around anti-queerness, using their hegemony to exclude and deny queer people. For example, players on a basketball team often grope and spank each other. Such behavior is socially obligated to some extent as a form of camaraderie and validation (e.g. \u201ccompulsory\u201d same-sex desire). Yet such behavior is only \u201cok\u201d as long as it is not explicitly \u201cgay.\u201d The basketball team itself will go to extreme lengths to exclude and bully queer men precisely to ensure that the team’s own manifestation of same-sex affection is not perceived as queer. They grope each other because they\u2019re not <\/em>gay, a paradoxical phenomenon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This definition of homosociality is in line with how we have been using it in class. After all, Baldwin pays special attention to the ways that same-sex religious spaces in Go Tell It On The Mountain <\/em>are \u201cgay\u201d but also \u201cnot gay.\u201d <\/em>Men and women may kiss each other, as long as it is a \u201choly kiss\u201d between straight <\/em>men\/women. Elisha and John can wrestle, as long as they do so in a (heterosexual) \u201cmanly\u201d way. When Elisha and John wrestle in the back room of the Church, Baldwin writes, \u201cElisha let fall the stiff gay mop and rushed at John\u201d (53). The paragraph is filled with phrases like \u201cstiff,\u201d \u201cthrust,\u201d and Elisha\u2019s \u201cdamp fists, joined at the small of John\u2019s back\u201d (Baldwin 50). The language of the scene emphasizes that which, in almost any other context, would be queer. This same analysis can be applied to Bigger in the movie theatre, when he does a \u201cgay thing\u201d (masturbating with a man) because he is \u201cnot gay.\u201d This, in essence, is homosociality: same-sex spaces that demand same-sex desire while categorically denying the rights of a person who desires the same-sex. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Quick note: I apologize if none of this makes sense. I\u2019m trying to explain a theory that Sedgwick wrote two whole books about, so I may have failed dramatically. In class on Monday, I mentioned that I noticed an intertwining of queer coding and religious imagery in Part 1 of Go Tell It On The … Continue reading What is Homosociality?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3729,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[480788,471414],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-go-tell-it-on-the-mountain","category-native-son"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3729"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/jamesbaldwin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}