Secrecy, disclosure, and closet dynamics

Journal of Homosexuality
G SmithM Chapple

Abstract

This paper examines the assumption that male homosexuality has a natural affinity with femininity and that male heterosexuality has a natural affinity with masculinity. An analysis of the relationship between people's disclosure or concealment of their homosexual practice or identity, particularly as it relates to notions of hegemonic masculinity and femininity provides the focus of this paper. It is argued that everyday understandings of homosexuality tend to be resolved in such as way as to press homosexuality into the service of privileging a male, masculine, and heterosexual subjectivity. This privileging is achieved, in part, as a result of the everyday social practices of homosexually active men's witting and unwitting deference to the hegemonic presumption that masculine men are naturally heterosexual, and its inverse, that feminine men are homosexual and are a perturbation of the natural order. We argue that this correlation is manufactured in everyday life in the world of appearances, but that the appearance of things is not reflected at a level of practice, which is to say, male homosexual practice is not necessarily feminine, just as male heterosexual practice is not necessarily masculine. Realities that conflict wit...Continue Reading

References

Jan 1, 1978·Journal of Homosexuality·M G ShivelyJ P De Cecco
Dec 1, 1984·Zeitschrift Für Kinderchirurgie : Organ Der Deutschen, Der Schweizerischen Und Der Osterreichischen Gesellschaft Für Kinderchirurgie = Surgery in Infancy and Childhood·J CarrA Pearson

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Citations

Jul 5, 2018·Global Public Health·Constanza Jacques-AviñóJoan A Caylà
Feb 9, 2007·Journal of Homosexuality·Dean Durber
May 17, 2017·Culture, Health & Sexuality·Asifa Siraj
Jan 6, 2021·Journal of Homosexuality·Michael Boucai

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