Sexuality And Racism

Words: 1648
Pages: 7

This study will attempt to theorize an intersectional account (Ashmore, Deaux & McLaughlin-Volpe, 2004), and phenomenological demonstration of sexuality and race, specifically focusing on experiences of racism and Othering amongst queer men of color, and these individuals’ negotiations of such within queer spaces. The confluence of these demographic qualities is pertinent insofar as it circumscribes socio-spatial restrictions upon the aforementioned in predominantly Anglo-European spheres and is indivisible (Said, 1993), and hence unwieldy to deconstructive interrogation. The ensuing discourse delves cursorily into considerations of ethnicity, since race and ethnicity are entwined (Grosfoguel, 2004).

Sexuality regards an inclination towards
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236; Williams, 2004; Eng, 2001) in gay spheres, queer black sexuality has been pathologized as voracious and violent (Collins, 2004; Husbands et al., 2013). Considered vis-à-vis previous assertions regarding the valorization of hypermasculinity in these spheres, the construction of black sexuality as such is unaccounted for by many classical theoretical frameworks. A conjunctive interpretation of Connell (1995) and Butler (1990)’s theories of hegemonic masculinities and dramaturgical gender suggests that masculinity is constructed in relief to femininity. Hence, insofar as white masculinity is juxtaposed against the alleged masculine hyperbole (hooks, 2004) of black sexuality, the former should occupy the feminine pole of the false feminine/masculine …show more content…
Racial others within queer spaces are subject to its inherently ethnocentric nature that valorizes whiteness and correspondingly accords it a privileged standing in those spaces, to the derogation of individuals of color – race is hence more salient than sexuality as a means of sexual distinguishing and selecting than sexuality, at least within queer spaces. Responses to such were also interrogated, while it was clear that certain means of negotiating racial discrimination were adaptive (Wilson & Yoshikawa, 2004), others were more maladaptive, being that they reproduced problematic norms and