Paper Topic:

In what ways has queer theory questioned the construction of sexuality through culture and history?

Running Head : In what ways has queer theory questioned the construction of sexuality through culture and history

Introduction

The queer theory has led to questions on the sexuality in various cultures . HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Teresa_de_Lauretis \o "Teresa de Lauretis " Teresa de Lauretis is the person [www .cddc .vt .edu]who came up with the phrase Queer Theory . It was at a working conference on theorizing lesbian and gay sexualities that was held at the HYPERLINK "http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /University_of_California " \o "University of California " University of California , HYPERLINK

"http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Santa_Cruz " \o "Santa Cruz " Santa Cruz in February 1990 . Once the term 'queer ' was , at best , slang for homosexual , at worst , a term of homophobic abuse . Today 'queer ' has come to be used differently , sometimes as an umbrella term for a coalition of culturally marginal sexual self-identifications and at other times to describe a theoretical model which has developed out of more traditional lesbian and gay studies

Queer focuses on mismatches between sex , gender and desire Institutionally , queer has been associated most prominently with lesbian and gay subjects , but its analytic framework also includes such s as cross-dressing , hermaphroditism , gender ambiguity and gender-corrective surgery . In many respects , Queer theory is grounded in gender and sexuality . Due to this association , a debate emerges as to whether sexual orientation is natural or essential to the person , as an essentialist believes , or if sexuality is merely a construction and subject to change [www .cddc .vt .edu]

The essentialist theory was introduced to Queer Criticism as a by-product of feminism when the criticism was known by most as Lesbian /Gay Criticism . The feminists believed that both genders "have an essential nature (e .g . nurturing and caring versus being aggressive and selfish , as opposed to differing by a variety of accidental or contingent features brought about by social forces . Due to this belief in the essential nature of a person , it is also natural to assume that a person 's sexual preference would be natural and essential to a person 's personality , who they are

The Constructivists counters that there is no natural , that all meaning is constructed through discourse and there is no other subject other than the creation of meaning for social theory . In a Constructivist perspective , it is not proper to take gay or lesbian as subjects with objective reality but rather they must be understood in terms of their social context , in how genealogy creates these terms through history

Foucault explains in his The History of Sexuality , 200 years ago [www .ipce .info] there was no linguistic category for gay male . Instead the term that applied to sex between two men was sodomy . Over time , the homosexual was created through the discourses of medicine and especially psychiatry . What is conventionally understood to be the same practice was gradually transformed from a sinful lifestyle into an issue of sexual orientation . Foucault argues that prior to this discursive creation there was no such thing as a person...

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